# whitening vs widening

> English confusable word pair

## The two words

### whitening
*verb · IPA /ˈwaɪtn̩ɪŋ/ · frequency rank #33,085*
present participle and gerund of whiten

### widening
*adjective · IPA /ˈwaɪdənɪŋ/ · frequency rank #16,386*
Growing wider or farther apart.

## Source
Compiled from Wiktionary via kaikki.org (CC BY-SA). Data vintage: 2026-05-06.
Canonical page: https://plainspell.com/en/vs/whitening-vs-widening