Which to use
“smelling” is a verb and “smelting” is a noun - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.
- #13,426
- “smelling” frequency rank
- #33,423
- “smelting” frequency rank
- 46849
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | smelling | smelting |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | present participle and gerund of smell | The process of melting or fusion, especially to extract a metal from its ore. |
Letter map: smelling vs smelting
Shared letters muted; letters that set smelling and smelting apart highlighted. Shared run: 7. smelling and smelting follow the identical consonant-vowel pattern (CCVCCVCC). Same shape at a glance is often the real trap, independent of shared letters.
Part-of-speech tell for smelling / smelting
Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: smelling is averb and smeltinganoun. On the page they differ by a single letter - l in “smelling” becomes t in “smelting”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 46849, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
smelling is recorded at frequency rank #13,426, classified as averb, pronounced /ˈsmɛlɪŋ/. smelting is at rank #33,423, 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 46849, this pair ranks #207,871 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.
Orthographic DNA of smelling vs smelting
Shared letters: egilmns. Private to "smelling": -. Private to "smelting": t.
"smelling" · 8 letters · shape CCVCCVCC · "smelting" · 8 letters · shape CCVCCVCC
Known mistypes of this pair
Frequently Asked Questions
Is swapping "smelling" for "smelting" ever safe?
In ordinary English text, does "smelling" or "smelting" show up more?
Useful next steps
Pair "smelling" vs "smelting" is on the table, pick a follow-up below.
- Full dictionary entry for "smelling" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "smelting" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #207,871 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "smelling" and "smelting" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "sheeting vs smelting". 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 #207,871 of 530,003 scored English pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.