deadening
"deadening" is a 9-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“deadening” is uncommon English (frequency #78,514 among 26,416 “D” headwords), classed as a verb. The kind of spelling people second-guess.
- #78,514
- frequency rank, English
- 26,416
- “D” headwords
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - present participle and gerund of deaden
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | deadening |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Verb |
| Letters | 9 |
| Frequency rank | #78,514 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “deadening” sits in English frequency
Rare enough to double-check
deadening is uncommon English at frequency #78,514 among 26,416 “D” headwords, classed as averb. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. Gloss: "present participle and gerund of deaden".
Zero misspellings are on record for deadening in our index, a straightforward case of a spelling with little room for common typos. Our confusable-pair dataset has no match for it, which tends to mean the word is visually distinctive enough to stand on its own.
No borrowing history is documented for this entry, so its spelling is best read as a straightforward mapping from sound to letter. The correct English form is deadening, spelled D-E-A-D-E-N-I-N-G.
Definition
- 1present participle and gerund of deaden
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 "deadening"?
What does "deadening" mean?
What language does "deadening" come from?
Is PlainSpell free to use?
Using “deadening”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct English spelling is D-E-A-D-E-N-I-N-G - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
- 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.