blushing
/ˈblʌʃɪŋ/
"blushing" is a 8-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“blushing” is a moderately-common English word, ranked #26,018 in English word frequency and used as a verb.
- #26,018
- frequency rank, English
- 8
- letters
- 13
- tracked misspellings
- 8
- confusable pairs
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - present participle and gerund of blush
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 | blushing |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Verb |
| IPA | /ˈblʌʃɪŋ/ |
| Letters | 8 |
| Frequency rank | #26,018 |
| Misspellings tracked | 13 |
| Confusable pairs | 8 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “blushing” sits in English frequency
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for blushing is 8 letters long, classified as a verb, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /ˈblʌʃɪŋ/. Corpus data places it at rank #26,018 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 blush".
Our generated misspelling index lists 13 likely wrong-spelling variants for blushing, with forms such as "bblushing", "bllushing", and "blsuhing". 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 8 confusable-pair relationships, "busting", "bushing", "brushing", and more, since the words sound or look close enough that writers reach for the wrong one mid-sentence.
No documented word history exists for this headword, so spelling patterns must be inferred from the word's phoneme-to-grapheme mapping rather than from a documented borrowing chain. The correct English form is blushing, spelled B-L-U-S-H-I-N-G.
Definition
- 1present participle and gerund of blush
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as: bblushing,bllushing,blsuhing,bluhsing,blushhing,blushign,blushingg,blushinng,blushnig,blusihng,blusshing,bulshing,lbushing
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
How far each generated variant is from the correct spelling of blushing - 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
How do you spell "blushing"?
What does "blushing" mean?
What words are commonly confused with "blushing"?
How do you pronounce "blushing"?
What language does "blushing" come from?
Is PlainSpell free to use?
Using “blushing”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct English spelling is B-L-U-S-H-I-N-G - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
- Say it as /ˈblʌʃɪŋ/ (IPA); tap the speaker on the pronunciation badge to hear it where audio exists.
- Don't mix it up with “busting” - see the side-by-side comparison. blushing vs busting
- 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.