catering
/ˈkeɪt(ə)ɹɪŋ/
"catering" is a 8-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“catering” has 12 generated spelling variants in the English index at frequency #12,199. The variants make it a useful spelling check.
- #12,199
- frequency rank, English
- 5,599
- “C” headwords
- 12
- tracked misspellings
- 6
- confusable pairs
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - The business of providing food and related services; foodservice.
Corpus desk
Index EN-catering · catering · English
catering · rank #12,199 · 12 variants · 6 confusables
- FREQ-MID #12,199
- LEN-LONG 8 letters
- VOW-3 3 vowels
- CONFUS-MID 6 pairs
- VAR-MID 12 variants
- BOOK-DENSE 5,599
- PHOTO-FINISH Canberra
Nearest frequency peer: Canberra (-1 rank slots)
Read with this headword: Spelling guide for this pattern
Desk codes from Wiktionary headword shape, FrequencyWords rank tier, confusable-pair count, generated misspelling depth, letter-cohort book size, and photo-finish peer. Not a difficulty grade.
Rank peers near misspelling magnet “catering”
Same rarity band: useful when a typo lands on a peer headword
- camel
camel
87,804 corpus weight
- Canberra
Canberra
87,803 corpus weight
- catering
catering
87,802 corpus weight
- charger
charger
87,801 corpus weight
- checkout
checkout
87,800 corpus weight
- chefs
chefs
87,799 corpus weight
What this shows “catering” sits among these FrequencyWords peers; misspelling depth is tracked separately in the edit-distance chart.
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 | catering |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | /ˈkeɪt(ə)ɹɪŋ/ |
| Letters | 8 |
| Frequency rank | #12,199 |
| Misspellings tracked | 12 |
| Confusable pairs | 6 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Frequency seat of misspelling magnet “catering”
A misspelling magnet
The generator records 12 spelling variants around catering (IPA /ˈkeɪt(ə)ɹɪŋ/), anoun. Corpus frequency is #12,199 among 5,599 “C” headwords. Wiktionary lists 3 senses, so context still picks the gloss.
Our generated misspelling index lists 12 likely wrong-spelling variants for catering, with forms such as "actering", "caetring", and "cateirng". 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 6 confusable-pair relationships, "covering", "cheering", "Catherine", and more, a pairing that trips writers up because the two words share enough sound or shape to blur together.
No explicit etymology string is stored for this entry, so any spelling logic here comes from how the word's sounds map to letters, not a documented origin story. The correct English form is catering, spelled C-A-T-E-R-I-N-G.
Definition
- 1The business of providing food and related services; foodservice.
- 2The business of providing such services for special occasions.
- 3The act of one who caters (to something).
Recorded use
Wiktionary exampleThese source excerpts show how catering appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.
Professional jealousies are always confined to the more ignorant; and education alone will enable us to rise above our catchpenny caterings to the prejudices and jealousies of the uninformed.
This word in other languages
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as:
- actering
- caetring
- cateirng
- caterign
- cateringg
- caterinng
- caternig
- caterring
- catreing
- cattering
- ccatering
- ctaering
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
How far each generated variant is from the correct spelling of catering - counted as single-character edits (an insertion, a deletion, or a substituted letter). The larger the bar, the easier the typo is to spot; one-edit slips are the ones that sneak past readers.
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 "catering"?
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Similar English words by spelling shape
Same letter count and similar misspelling depth for "catering", not the corpus desk frequency band.
Same letter count
Frequency-ranked English headwords with 8 letters (nearest by frequency rank).
Similar misspelling depth
Headwords with a similar count of attested misspellings (12 here; floor ≥5).