besting
/ˈbɛstɪŋ/
"besting" is a 7-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“besting” is uncommon English (frequency #68,040 among 31,241 “B” headwords), classed as a verb. The kind of spelling people second-guess.
- #68,040
- frequency rank, English
- 31,241
- “B” headwords
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - present participle and gerund of best
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | besting |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Verb |
| IPA | /ˈbɛstɪŋ/ |
| Letters | 7 |
| Frequency rank | #68,040 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “besting” sits in English frequency
Rare enough to double-check
besting is uncommon English at frequency #68,040 among 31,241 “B” headwords, classed as averb, transcribed /ˈbɛstɪŋ/. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. Gloss: "present participle and gerund of best".
The misspelling generator found no plausible variants for besting, and the word's spelling is regular enough that our generator found nothing worth flagging. No close-neighbour confusable shows up for this headword in our dataset, since its spelling is unusual enough that it doesn't cluster with a lookalike.
Wiktionary doesn't record an etymology for this headword, so its spelling is best explained by sound-to-letter mapping rather than etymology. The correct English form is besting, spelled B-E-S-T-I-N-G.
Definition
- 1present participle and gerund of best
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 “besting”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct English spelling is B-E-S-T-I-N-G - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
- Say it as /ˈbɛstɪŋ/ (IPA); tap the speaker on the pronunciation badge to hear it where audio exists.
- Browse more English words and confusable pairs in the same reference. English words
Other uncommon English words near this rank
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.