Which to use
“tailing” and “tailings” are a confusable English pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.
- #42,442
- “tailing” frequency rank
- #42,443
- “tailings” frequency rank
- 84885
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | tailing | tailings |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | The act of following someone. | The waste that remains after the minerals have been extracted from an ore by ore dressing; the waste from coal mining. |
Letter map: tailing vs tailings
Shared letters muted; letters that set tailing and tailings apart highlighted. Shared run: 7. tailing runs 7 letters (CVVCVCC) against tailings's 8 (CVVCVCCC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.
Spelling & dictionary notes on tailing vs tailings
tailing and tailings are indexed as a confusable English pair. We have no recorded pronunciation or part of speech for both members, so the spelling overlap is what we can show you: they differ by 1 extra letter(s) - “tailing” sits inside “tailings”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 84885, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
tailing is recorded at frequency rank #42,442, classified as anoun. tailings is at rank #42,443, 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 84885, this pair ranks #11,303 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.
Orthographic DNA of tailing vs tailings
Shared letters: agilnt. Private to "tailing": -. Private to "tailings": s.
"tailing" · 7 letters · shape CVVCVCC · "tailings" · 8 letters · shape CVVCVCCC
Known mistypes of this pair
Frequently Asked Questions
Can "tailing" and "tailings" be used interchangeably?
Which is more common, "tailing" or "tailings"?
After this comparison
You've compared "tailing" and "tailings". Here's where to go from here.
- Full dictionary entry for "tailing" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "tailings" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #11,303 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "tailing" and "tailings" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "tailings vs toiling". 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 #11,303 of 530,003 scored English pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.