showingvsstoningTell them apart

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

Which to use

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

#1,409
“showing” frequency rank
#39,585
“stoning” frequency rank
40994
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature showing stoning
Definition present participle and gerund of show lapidation: punishment by throwing stones, usually resulting in death

Letter map: showing vs stoning

Shared letters muted; letters that set showing and stoning apart highlighted. Shared run: 5.

7 ch
showing
7 ch
stoning

Part-of-speech tell for showing / stoning

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: showing is averb and stoninganoun. On the page they share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 40994, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

showing is recorded at frequency rank #1,409, classified as averb, pronounced /ˈʃəʊɪŋ/. stoning is at rank #39,585, 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 40994, this pair ranks #262,510 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of showing vs stoning

Shared letters: ginos. Private to "showing": hw. Private to "stoning": t.

"showing" · 7 letters · shape CCVCVCC  ·  "stoning" · 7 letters · shape CCVCVCC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • showinghsowing · shhowing · shoiwng · showign · showingg · showinng · shownig · showwing
  • stoningsotning · sstoning · stnoing · stoinng · stonign · stoningg · stoninng · stonnig

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "showing" and "stoning" be used interchangeably?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "showing" is a verb and "stoning" a noun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary English text, does "showing" or "stoning" show up more?
"showing" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #1,409 in our English list, against #39,585 for "stoning". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

What to do next

Pair "showing" vs "stoning" is on the table, pick a follow-up below.

  • Full dictionary entry for "showing" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "stoning" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #262,510 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "showing" and "stoning" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "stoning vs stunting". 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 #262,510 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