talkingvstiltingConfusable pair

Which to use

“talking” and “tilting” are a confusable English pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.

#520
“talking” frequency rank
#24,931
“tilting” frequency rank
25451
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature talking tilting
Definition The action of the verb talk. The motion of something that tilts; a tilt.

Letter map: talking vs tilting

Shared letters muted; letters that set talking and tilting apart highlighted. Shared run: 5.

7 ch
talking
7 ch
tilting

Pair insight - talking / tilting

talking and tilting 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 share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 25451, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

talking is recorded at frequency rank #520, classified as anoun, pronounced /ˈtɔːkɪŋ/. tilting is at rank #24,931, 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 25451, this pair ranks #394,160 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of talking vs tilting

Shared letters: gilnt. Private to "talking": ak. Private to "tilting": -.

"talking" · 7 letters · shape CVCCVCC  ·  "tilting" · 7 letters · shape CVCCVCC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • talkingatlking · takling · talikng · talkign · talkingg · talkinng · talkking · talknig
  • tiltingitlting · tilitng · tillting · tiltign · tiltingg · tiltinng · tiltnig · tiltting

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "talking" and "tilting" be used interchangeably?
No. They share most of their letters but differ in 2 positions, but the dictionary glosses above give them different meanings, so swapping one for the other changes what the sentence says.
Frequency check: "talking" vs "tilting" - which ranks higher?
"talking" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #520 in our English list, against #24,931 for "tilting". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

What to do next

You've compared "talking" and "tilting". Here's where to go from here.

  • Full dictionary entry for "talking" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "tilting" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #394,160 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "talking" and "tilting" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "tilting 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 #394,160 of 530,003 scored English pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.

Source: Wiktionary (via kaikki.org) Structured Wiktionary extract

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list