Which to use
“wading” is an adjective and “walking” is a verb - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.
- #27,332
- “wading” frequency rank
- #1,472
- “walking” frequency rank
- 28804
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | wading | walking |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Appropriate to wade in. | present participle and gerund of walk |
Letter map: wading vs walking
Shared letters muted; letters that set wading and walking apart highlighted. Shared run: 5.
Part-of-speech tell for wading / walking
Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: wading is anadjective and walkingaverb. On the page they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 28804, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
wading is recorded at frequency rank #27,332, classified as anadj. walking is at rank #1,472, tagged as averb, pronounced /ˈwɔː.kɪŋ/.
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 28804, this pair ranks #368,187 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.
Orthographic DNA of wading vs walking
Shared letters: aginw. Private to "wading": d. Private to "walking": kl.
"wading" · 6 letters · shape CVCVCC · "walking" · 7 letters · shape CVCCVCC
Known mistypes of this pair
Frequently Asked Questions
Do "wading" and "walking" mean the same thing in a sentence?
Frequency check: "wading" vs "walking" - which ranks higher?
Useful next steps
You've compared "wading" and "walking". Here's where to go from here.
- Full dictionary entry for "wading" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "walking" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #368,187 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "wading" and "walking" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "wading vs walling". 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 #368,187 of 530,003 scored English pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.