altering
"altering" is a 8-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“altering” is a moderately-common English word, ranked #13,089 in English word frequency and used as a verb.
- #13,089
- frequency rank, English
- 8
- letters
- 12
- tracked misspellings
- 3
- confusable pairs
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - present participle and gerund of alter
Visual similarity to commonly confused words
How many letter changes separate each confused pair (Levenshtein distance, normalized).
Source: PlainSpell confusable corpus (Wiktionary, CC BY-SA).
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | altering |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Verb |
| Letters | 8 |
| Frequency rank | #13,089 |
| Misspellings tracked | 12 |
| Confusable pairs | 3 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “altering” sits in English frequency
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for altering is 8 letters long, classified as a verb. Corpus data places it at rank #13,089 in overall English word frequency, marking it as uncommon enough that many writers pause before typing it. The dominant gloss from Wiktionary reads: "present participle and gerund of alter".
Our generated misspelling index lists 12 likely wrong-spelling variants for altering, with forms such as "aletring", "alltering", and "alteirng". Every one of these variants traces to a single-character edit -- an added or dropped letter, a swapped consonant, or a vowel swap -- the kind of slip a spell-checker is built to catch. It also participates in 3 confusable-pair relationships, "alleging", "adhering", "alluring", a pairing that trips writers up because the two words share enough sound or shape to blur together.
No borrowing history is documented for this entry, so its spelling is easiest explained by how it's pronounced rather than where it came from. The correct English form is altering, spelled A-L-T-E-R-I-N-G.
Definition
- 1present participle and gerund of alter
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as: aletring,alltering,alteirng,alterign,alteringg,alterinng,alternig,alterring,altreing,alttering,atlering,latering
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
How far each generated variant is from the correct spelling of altering - measured in single-character edits (insert, delete, or substitute a letter). Larger bars are easier to catch; one-edit slips are the sneakiest.
Definitions, pronunciation, and etymology for this entry are drawn from Wiktionary via the kaikki.org structured extract (CC BY-SA); frequency ordering uses the FrequencyWords open word-frequency list (2018 English corpus, MIT). See the methodology for how each field is sourced and updated.
Frequently Asked Questions
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Using “altering”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct English spelling is A-L-T-E-R-I-N-G - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
- Don't mix it up with “alleging” - see the side-by-side comparison. altering vs alleging
- Browse more English words and confusable pairs in the same reference. English words
Data Source
Wiktionary (via kaikki.org), licensed under CC BY-SA & GFDL. Word ordering uses an open word-frequency list; misspelling variants are generated by edit-distance from the correct headword.