tauntingvstoutingWhat's the difference?

Quick tell: taunting is a verb, touting is a noun, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“taunting” is a verb and “touting” is a noun - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#28,752
“taunting” frequency rank
#36,793
“touting” frequency rank
65545
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature taunting touting
Definition present participle and gerund of taunt The act of one who touts.

Letter map: taunting vs touting

Shared letters muted; letters that set taunting and touting apart highlighted. Shared run: 6.

8 ch
taunting
7 ch
touting

Role in the sentence - taunting and touting

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: taunting is averb and toutinganoun. On the page they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 65545, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

taunting is recorded at frequency rank #28,752, classified as averb, pronounced /ˈtɔːnt.ɪŋ/. touting is at rank #36,793, 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 65545, this pair ranks #72,221 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of taunting vs touting

Shared letters: gintu. Private to "taunting": a. Private to "touting": o.

"taunting" · 8 letters · shape CVVCCVCC  ·  "touting" · 7 letters · shape CVVCVCC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • tauntingatunting · tanuting · taunitng · taunnting · tauntign · tauntingg · tauntinng · tauntnig
  • toutingotuting · totuing · touitng · toutign · toutingg · toutinng · toutnig · toutting

Frequently Asked Questions

Is swapping "taunting" for "touting" ever safe?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "taunting" is a verb and "touting" a noun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary English text, does "taunting" or "touting" show up more?
"taunting" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #28,752 in our English list, against #36,793 for "touting". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

What to do next

Done with this confusable. These links stay specific to "taunting" and "touting".

  • Full dictionary entry for "taunting" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "touting" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #72,221 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "taunting" and "touting" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "toiling vs touting". 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 #72,221 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