Which to use
“sinning” is a noun and “stinking” is an adjective - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.
- #41,885
- “sinning” frequency rank
- #27,658
- “stinking” frequency rank
- 69543
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | sinning | stinking |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | The act of committing a sin. | Having a pungent smell. |
Letter map: sinning vs stinking
Shared letters muted; letters that set sinning and stinking apart highlighted. Shared run: 6.
Part-of-speech tell for sinning / stinking
Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: sinning is anoun and stinkinganadjective. On the page they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 69543, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
sinning is recorded at frequency rank #41,885, classified as anoun. stinking is at rank #27,658, tagged as anadj, pronounced /ˈstɪŋkɪŋ/.
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 69543, this pair ranks #54,114 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.
Orthographic DNA of sinning vs stinking
Shared letters: gins. Private to "sinning": -. Private to "stinking": kt.
"sinning" · 7 letters · shape CVCCVCC · "stinking" · 8 letters · shape CCVCCVCC
Known mistypes of this pair
Frequently Asked Questions
Is swapping "sinning" for "stinking" ever safe?
Frequency check: "sinning" vs "stinking" - which ranks higher?
After this comparison
Pair "sinning" vs "stinking" is on the table, pick a follow-up below.
- Full dictionary entry for "sinning" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "stinking" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #54,114 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "sinning" and "stinking" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "shunning vs sinning". 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 #54,114 of 530,003 scored English pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.