darkening
"darkening" is a 9-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“darkening” has 14 generated spelling variants in the English index at frequency #39,276. The variants make it a useful spelling check.
- #39,276
- frequency rank, English
- 3,470
- “D” headwords
- 14
- tracked misspellings
- 1
- confusable pair
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - The act of something becoming darker.
Corpus desk
Index EN-darkening · darkening · English
darkening · rank #39,276 · 14 variants · 1 confusable
- FREQ-MID #39,276
- LEN-LONG 9 letters
- VOW-3 3 vowels
- CONFUS-LOW 1 pairs
- VAR-HIGH 14 variants
- BOOK-MID 3,470
- PHOTO-FINISH debs
Nearest frequency peer: debs (+2 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 “darkening”
Same rarity band: useful when a typo lands on a peer headword
- cymbals
cymbals
60,729 corpus weight
- darkening
darkening
60,725 corpus weight
- debs
debs
60,723 corpus weight
- debunking
debunking
60,722 corpus weight
- decompose
decompose
60,721 corpus weight
- ded
ded
60,720 corpus weight
What this shows “darkening” 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 | darkening |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| Letters | 9 |
| Frequency rank | #39,276 |
| Misspellings tracked | 14 |
| Confusable pairs | 1 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Frequency seat of misspelling magnet “darkening”
A misspelling magnet
The generator records 14 spelling variants around darkening, anoun. Corpus frequency is #39,276 among 3,470 “D” headwords. Dominant gloss: "The act of something becoming darker.".
Our generated misspelling index lists 14 likely wrong-spelling variants for darkening, with forms such as "adrkening", "dakrening", and "darekning". Each of these forms differs from the correct spelling by one small edit: a doubled letter, a dropped silent letter, or a substituted vowel. It also participates in 1 confusable-pair relationship, "dampening", where similar look or sound leads writers to substitute one word for another in context.
This entry's etymology isn't recorded, 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 darkening, spelled D-A-R-K-E-N-I-N-G.
Definition
- 1The act of something becoming darker.
Recorded use
Wiktionary examplesThese source excerpts show how darkening appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.
At last the first glimpse from a bridge of an open-top red bus, and a noticeable darkening of the atmosphere from the smoke of London: then the increasingly dingy stations with double-barrel names, set amid what has always been to me the outstanding feature of the "Premier Line" approach to London—the positively marvellous display of crazy chimney-pots on…
NEGATIVE FLASHES — Brief darkenings of a light that is otherwise steadily on.
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as:
- adrkening
- dakrening
- darekning
- darkeinng
- darkenign
- darkeningg
- darkeninng
- darkennig
- darkenning
- darkkening
- darkneing
- darrkening
- ddarkening
- drakening
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
How far each generated variant is from the correct spelling of darkening - 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
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Similar English words by spelling shape
Same letter count and similar misspelling depth for "darkening", not the corpus desk frequency band.
Same letter count
Frequency-ranked English headwords with 9 letters (nearest by frequency rank).
Similar misspelling depth
Headwords with a similar count of attested misspellings (14 here; floor ≥5).