Which to use
“rearing” is a verb and “retaking” is a noun - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.
- #25,545
- “rearing” frequency rank
- #49,592
- “retaking” frequency rank
- 75137
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | rearing | retaking |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | present participle and gerund of rear | The act of taking again. |
Letter map: rearing vs retaking
Shared letters muted; letters that set rearing and retaking apart highlighted. Shared run: 6. rearing runs 7 letters (CVVCVCC) against retaking's 8 (CVCVCVCC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.
Part-of-speech tell for rearing / retaking
Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: rearing is averb and retakinganoun. On the page they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 75137, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
rearing is recorded at frequency rank #25,545, classified as averb. retaking is at rank #49,592, tagged as anoun.
Glosses for this pair are partially populated in our dataset, but the full side-by-side definitions above should still guide you to the right choice.
With a confusion score of 75137, this pair ranks #34,065 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.
Orthographic DNA of rearing vs retaking
Shared letters: aeginr. Private to "rearing": -. Private to "retaking": kt.
"rearing" · 7 letters · shape CVVCVCC · "retaking" · 8 letters · shape CVCVCVCC
Known mistypes of this pair
Frequently Asked Questions
Is swapping "rearing" for "retaking" ever safe?
In ordinary English text, does "rearing" or "retaking" show up more?
Useful next steps
Done with this confusable. These links stay specific to "rearing" and "retaking".
- Full dictionary entry for "rearing" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "retaking" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #34,065 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "rearing" and "retaking" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "retaking vs revoking". Nearby pair
- Recorded mistypes exist for at least one side of this pair, useful when a spell-checker or OCR lands on the wrong form. See mistypes
Confusion rank #34,065 of 530,003 scored English pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.