Which to use
“walking” and “waring” are a confusable English pair: similar on the page, but distinct in meaning, check the gloss before you choose.
- #1,472
- “walking” frequency rank
- #41,467
- “waring” frequency rank
- 42939
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | walking | waring |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | present participle and gerund of walk | present participle and gerund of ware |
Where the eye mixes walking and waring
Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 5 letters in sequence.
Why the eye confuses walking with waring
A purely visual mix-up. walking (/ˈwɔː.kɪŋ/) and waring (/ˈwɛɹɪŋ/) are said differently, so reading them aloud is the quickest way to catch the wrong one. On the page they stay close: they differ by 1 letter(s) in length. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 42939, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
walking is recorded at frequency rank #1,472, classified as averb, pronounced /ˈwɔː.kɪŋ/. waring is at rank #41,467, tagged as averb, pronounced /ˈwɛɹɪŋ/.
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 42939, this pair ranks #244,730 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs - roughly mid-pack for confusability.
Orthographic DNA of walking vs waring
Shared letters: aginw. Private to "walking": kl. Private to "waring": r.
"walking" · 7 letters · shape CVCCVCC · "waring" · 6 letters · shape CVCVCC
Known mistypes of this pair
Frequently Asked Questions
Is swapping "walking" for "waring" ever safe?
Frequency check: "walking" vs "waring" - which ranks higher?
What to do next
Eye-level mix-up between "walking" and "waring" is sorted above. Next: full entries or other pairs that share a letter shape.
- Full dictionary entry for "walking" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "waring" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #244,730 of 530,003 scored English confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "walking" and "waring" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "waring vs whoring". 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 #244,730 of 530,003 scored English pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.