relaxingvsretakingWhat's the difference?

Quick tell: relaxing is a adjective, retaking is a noun, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“relaxing” is an adjective and “retaking” is a noun - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#8,340
“relaxing” frequency rank
#49,592
“retaking” frequency rank
57932
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature relaxing retaking
Definition Conducive to relaxation; helping one to relax. The act of taking again.

Letter map: relaxing vs retaking

Shared letters muted; letters that set relaxing and retaking apart highlighted. Shared run: 6.

8 ch
relaxing
8 ch
retaking

Role in the sentence - relaxing and retaking

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: relaxing is anadjective and retakinganoun. On the page they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 57932, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

relaxing is recorded at frequency rank #8,340, classified as anadj. 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 57932, this pair ranks #115,958 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of relaxing vs retaking

Shared letters: aeginr. Private to "relaxing": lx. Private to "retaking": kt.

"relaxing" · 8 letters · shape CVCVCVCC  ·  "retaking" · 8 letters · shape CVCVCVCC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • relaxingerlaxing · realxing · relaixng · relaxign · relaxingg · relaxinng · relaxnig · relaxxing
  • retakingertaking · reatking · retaikng · retakign · retakingg · retakinng · retakking · retaknig

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "relaxing" and "retaking" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "relaxing" is an adjective and "retaking" a noun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
Frequency check: "relaxing" vs "retaking" - which ranks higher?
"relaxing" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #8,340 in our English list, against #49,592 for "retaking". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

What to do next

You've compared "relaxing" and "retaking". Here's where to go from here.

  • Full dictionary entry for "relaxing" 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 #115,958 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "relaxing" 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 #115,958 of 530,003 scored English pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.

Source: Wiktionary (via kaikki.org) Structured Wiktionary extract

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list