defacing
/dɪˈfeɪsɪŋ(ɡ)/
"defacing" is a 8-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“defacing” is uncommon English (frequency #61,407 among 3,470 “D” headwords), classed as a verb. The kind of spelling people second-guess.
- #61,407
- frequency rank, English
- 3,470
- “D” headwords
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - present participle and gerund of deface
Corpus desk
Index EN-defacing · defacing · English
defacing · rank #61,407 · 0 variants · 0 confusables
- FREQ-RARE #61,407
- LEN-LONG 8 letters
- VOW-3 3 vowels
- CONFUS-0 No pairs
- VAR-0 0 variants
- BOOK-MID 3,470
- PHOTO-FINISH declination
Nearest frequency peer: declination (-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.
Long-tail ranks near “defacing”
Sparse band: bars invert rank so rarer forms read shorter
- cussed
cussed
38,603 corpus weight
- DBT
DBT
38,598 corpus weight
- declination
declination
38,596 corpus weight
- defacing
defacing
38,594 corpus weight
- defensivene…
defensiveness
38,592 corpus weight
- dells
dells
38,589 corpus weight
What this shows Long-tail view: where “defacing” sits against similarly uncommon English ranks.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | defacing |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Verb |
| IPA | /dɪˈfeɪsɪŋ(ɡ)/ |
| Letters | 8 |
| Frequency rank | #61,407 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Long-tail rank of “defacing” in English
Rare enough to double-check
defacing is uncommon English at frequency #61,407 among 3,470 “D” headwords, classed as averb, transcribed /dɪˈfeɪsɪŋ(ɡ)/. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. Gloss: "present participle and gerund of deface".
defacing has no tracked misspelling variants, since its letter pattern doesn't lend itself to common typo substitutions. This entry stands alone in our confusable dataset, since its spelling is unusual enough that it doesn't cluster with a lookalike.
This headword's origin isn't recorded in our source data, leaving phoneme-to-grapheme mapping as the best guide to its spelling rather than a borrowing history. The correct English form is defacing, spelled D-E-F-A-C-I-N-G.
Definition
- 1present participle and gerund of deface
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 "defacing", not the corpus desk frequency band.
Same letter count
Frequency-ranked English headwords with 8 letters (nearest by frequency rank).