relayingvsretakingTell them apart

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

Which to use

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

#36,732
“relaying” frequency rank
#49,592
“retaking” frequency rank
86324
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature relaying retaking
Definition present participle and gerund of relay The act of taking again.

Letter map: relaying vs retaking

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

8 ch
relaying
8 ch
retaking

Part-of-speech tell for relaying / retaking

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: relaying is averb and retakinganoun. On the page they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 86324, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

relaying is recorded at frequency rank #36,732, 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 86324, this pair ranks #9,130 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of relaying vs retaking

Shared letters: aeginr. Private to "relaying": ly. Private to "retaking": kt.

"relaying" · 8 letters · shape CVCVVVCC  ·  "retaking" · 8 letters · shape CVCVCVCC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • relayingerlaying · realying · relaiyng · relayign · relayingg · relayinng · relaynig · relayying
  • retakingertaking · reatking · retaikng · retakign · retakingg · retakinng · retakking · retaknig

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "relaying" for "retaking" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "relaying" is a verb and "retaking" a noun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary English text, does "relaying" or "retaking" show up more?
"relaying" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #36,732 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.

Useful next steps

Pair "relaying" vs "retaking" is on the table, pick a follow-up below.

  • Full dictionary entry for "relaying" 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 #9,130 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "relaying" 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 #9,130 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