# tailing vs tailings

> English confusable word pair

## The two words

### tailing
*noun · frequency rank #42,442*
The act of following someone.

### tailings
*noun · frequency rank #42,443*
The waste that remains after the minerals have been extracted from an ore by ore dressing; the waste from coal mining.

## Source
Compiled from Wiktionary via kaikki.org (CC BY-SA). Data vintage: 2026-05-06.
Canonical page: https://plainspell.com/en/vs/tailing-vs-tailings