Which to use
“thanking” and “thinking” are a confusable English pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.
- #14,649
- “thanking” frequency rank
- #579
- “thinking” frequency rank
- 15228
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | thanking | thinking |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | The act by which thanks are given; thanks. | The action or process of using one's mind to consider or reason about something. |
Letter map: thanking vs thinking
Shared letters muted; letters that set thanking and thinking apart highlighted. Shared run: 7.
Spelling & dictionary notes on thanking vs thinking
thanking and thinking 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 a single letter - a in “thanking” becomes i in “thinking”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 15228, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
thanking is recorded at frequency rank #14,649, classified as anoun. thinking is at rank #579, tagged as anoun, pronounced /ˈθɪŋkɪŋ/.
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 15228, this pair ranks #465,295 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - a relatively easy-to-tell-apart pair.
Orthographic DNA of thanking vs thinking
Shared letters: ghiknt. Private to "thanking": a. Private to "thinking": -.
"thanking" · 8 letters · shape CCVCCVCC · "thinking" · 8 letters · shape CCVCCVCC
Known mistypes of this pair
Frequently Asked Questions
Do "thanking" and "thinking" mean the same thing in a sentence?
Frequency check: "thanking" vs "thinking" - which ranks higher?
What to do next
You've compared "thanking" and "thinking". Here's where to go from here.
- Full dictionary entry for "thanking" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "thinking" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #465,295 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "thanking" and "thinking" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "thanking vs thawing". 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 #465,295 of 530,003 scored English pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.