thawingvsthingTell them apart

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

Which to use

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

#43,414
“thawing” frequency rank
#184
“thing” frequency rank
43598
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature thawing thing
Definition present participle and gerund of thaw That which is considered to exist as a separate entity, object, quality or concept.

Letter map: thawing vs thing

Shared letters muted; letters that set thawing and thing apart highlighted. Shared run: 5.

7 ch
thawing
5 ch
thing

Role in the sentence - thawing and thing

Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: thawing is averb and thinganoun. On the page they differ by 2 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 43598, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

thawing is recorded at frequency rank #43,414, classified as averb. thing is at rank #184, tagged as anoun, pronounced /ˈθɪŋ/.

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 43598, this pair ranks #238,469 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.

Orthographic DNA of thawing vs thing

Shared letters: ghint. Private to "thawing": aw. Private to "thing": -.

"thawing" · 7 letters · shape CCVCVCC  ·  "thing" · 5 letters · shape CCVCC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • thawinghtawing · tahwing · thaiwng · thawign · thawingg · thawinng · thawnig · thawwing
  • thinghting · thhing · thign · thingg · thinng · thnig · tihng · tthing

Frequently Asked Questions

Can "thawing" and "thing" be used interchangeably?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "thawing" is a verb and "thing" a noun, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary English text, does "thawing" or "thing" show up more?
"thing" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #184 in our English list, against #43,414 for "thawing". That is a wide gap, so in ordinary text the rarer spelling is the one worth double-checking.

What to do next

Done with this confusable. These links stay specific to "thawing" and "thing".

  • Full dictionary entry for "thawing" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "thing" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #238,469 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "thawing" and "thing" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "thawing vs trawling". 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 #238,469 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