remainingvsrepairingWhich spelling fits?

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

Which to use

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

#2,364
“remaining” frequency rank
#14,002
“repairing” frequency rank
16366
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature remaining repairing
Definition present participle and gerund of remain The act by which something is repaired; a mending.

Letter map: remaining vs repairing

Shared letters muted; letters that set remaining and repairing apart highlighted. Shared run: 7.

9 ch
remaining
9 ch
repairing

Part-of-speech tell for remaining / repairing

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: remaining is averb and repairinganoun. On the page they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 16366, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

remaining is recorded at frequency rank #2,364, classified as averb, pronounced /ɹɪˈmeɪnɪŋ/. repairing is at rank #14,002, 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 16366, this pair ranks #458,202 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.

Orthographic DNA of remaining vs repairing

Shared letters: aeginr. Private to "remaining": m. Private to "repairing": p.

"remaining" · 9 letters · shape CVCVVCVCC  ·  "repairing" · 9 letters · shape CVCVVCVCC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • remainingermaining · reamining · remaiinng · remainign · remainingg · remaininng · remainnig · remainning
  • repairingerpairing · reapiring · repaiirng · repairign · repairingg · repairinng · repairnig · repairring

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "remaining" and "repairing" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "remaining" is a verb and "repairing" a noun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary English text, does "remaining" or "repairing" show up more?
"remaining" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #2,364 in our English list, against #14,002 for "repairing". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

What to do next

Pair "remaining" vs "repairing" is on the table, pick a follow-up below.

  • Full dictionary entry for "remaining" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "repairing" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #458,202 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "remaining" and "repairing" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "remaining vs retraining". 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 #458,202 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