Which to use
“stinking” is an adjective and “stoning” is a noun - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.
- #27,658
- “stinking” frequency rank
- #39,585
- “stoning” frequency rank
- 67243
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | stinking | stoning |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Having a pungent smell. | lapidation: punishment by throwing stones, usually resulting in death |
Letter map: stinking vs stoning
Shared letters muted; letters that set stinking and stoning apart highlighted. Shared run: 6. stinking runs 8 letters (CCVCCVCC) against stoning's 7 (CCVCVCC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.
Part-of-speech tell for stinking / stoning
Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: stinking is anadjective and stoninganoun. On the page they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 67243, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
stinking is recorded at frequency rank #27,658, classified as anadj, pronounced /ˈstɪŋkɪŋ/. 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 67243, this pair ranks #64,258 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.
Orthographic DNA of stinking vs stoning
Shared letters: ginst. Private to "stinking": k. Private to "stoning": o.
"stinking" · 8 letters · shape CCVCCVCC · "stoning" · 7 letters · shape CCVCVCC
Known mistypes of this pair
Frequently Asked Questions
Do "stinking" and "stoning" mean the same thing in a sentence?
Which is more common, "stinking" or "stoning"?
What to do next
Done with this confusable. These links stay specific to "stinking" and "stoning".
- Full dictionary entry for "stinking" 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 #64,258 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "stinking" 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 #64,258 of 530,003 scored English pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.