bearing
/ˈbɛə̯ɹɪŋ/
"bearing" is a 7-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“bearing” is a regularly-used English word, ranked #4,918 in English word frequency and used as a verb.
- #4,918
- frequency rank, English
- 7
- letters
- 10
- tracked misspellings
- 20
- confusable pairs
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - present participle and gerund of bear
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 | bearing |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Verb |
| IPA | /ˈbɛə̯ɹɪŋ/ |
| Letters | 7 |
| Frequency rank | #4,918 |
| Misspellings tracked | 10 |
| Confusable pairs | 20 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “bearing” sits in English frequency
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for bearing is 7 letters long, classified as a verb, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /ˈbɛə̯ɹɪŋ/. Corpus data places it at rank #4,918 in overall English word frequency, indicating it appears regularly in written and spoken text. The dominant gloss from Wiktionary reads: "present participle and gerund of bear".
Our generated misspelling index lists 10 likely wrong-spelling variants for bearing, with forms such as "baering", "bbearing", and "beairng". Each variant is a distinct typo pattern an edit-distance generator flags, typically a doubled-consonant error, a silent-letter drop, or a vowel substitution. It also participates in 20 confusable-pair relationships, "being", "bring", "boring", and more, a pairing that trips writers up because the two words share enough sound or shape to blur together.
Etymologically, the entry records: From Middle English beringe, berynge, berende, berande, berand, from Old English berende (“bearing; fruitful”) (also as synonym Old English bǣrende), from Proto-Germanic *berandz, present participle of Proto-Germanic *beraną (“to bear; carry”), equivalent t… The correct English form is bearing, spelled B-E-A-R-I-N-G.
Definition
- 1present participle and gerund of bear
Etymology
From Middle English beringe, berynge, berende, berande, berand, from Old English berende (“bearing; fruitful”) (also as synonym Old English bǣrende), from Proto-Germanic *berandz, present participle of Proto-Germanic *beraną (“to bear; carry”), equivalent to bear + -ing.
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as: baering,bbearing,beairng,bearign,bearingg,bearinng,bearnig,bearring,beraing,ebaring
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
How far each generated variant is from the correct spelling of bearing - expressed in single-character edits (insert, delete, or swap one letter). Bigger bars stand out at a glance; a one-edit slip is the hardest to catch.
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 “bearing”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct English spelling is B-E-A-R-I-N-G - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
- Say it as /ˈbɛə̯ɹɪŋ/ (IPA); tap the speaker on the pronunciation badge to hear it where audio exists.
- Don't mix it up with “being” - see the side-by-side comparison. bearing vs being
- 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.