coloring
"coloring" is a 8-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“coloring” is a moderately-common English word, ranked #13,118 in English word frequency and used as a noun.
- #13,118
- frequency rank, English
- 8
- letters
- 12
- tracked misspellings
- 7
- confusable pairs
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - An act or process which applies color.
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 | coloring |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| Letters | 8 |
| Frequency rank | #13,118 |
| Misspellings tracked | 12 |
| Confusable pairs | 7 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “coloring” sits in English frequency
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for coloring is 8 letters long, classified as a noun. Corpus data places it at rank #13,118 in overall English word frequency, marking it as uncommon enough that many writers pause before typing it. Wiktionary records 5 distinct senses for this headword, so context determines which meaning a reader should apply.
Our generated misspelling index lists 12 likely wrong-spelling variants for coloring, with forms such as "ccoloring", "clooring", and "colloring". 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 7 confusable-pair relationships, "cooking", "cooling", "covering", and more, since the words sound or look close enough that writers reach for the wrong one mid-sentence.
This entry's etymology isn't recorded, so its spelling is best explained by sound-to-letter mapping rather than etymology. The correct English form is coloring, spelled C-O-L-O-R-I-N-G.
Definition
- 1An act or process which applies color.
- 2Any substance used to give color.
- 3The appearance as to color.
- 4A disguise or discoloration.
- 5An assignment of a color to each vertex of a graph, usually such that no two vertices connected by an edge are given the same color.
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as: ccoloring,clooring,colloring,coloirng,colorign,coloringg,colorinng,colornig,colorring,colroing,coolring,ocloring
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
How far each generated variant is from the correct spelling of coloring - 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 “coloring”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct English spelling is C-O-L-O-R-I-N-G - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
- Don't mix it up with “cooking” - see the side-by-side comparison. coloring vs cooking
- 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.