disturbing
/dɪsˈtɜː.bɪŋ/
"disturbing" is a 10-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“disturbing” is a regularly-used English word, ranked #6,562 in English word frequency and used as an adjective.
- #6,562
- frequency rank, English
- 10
- letters
- 16
- tracked misspellings
- 2
- confusable pairs
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - Causing distress or worry; upsetting or unsettling.
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 | disturbing |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Adjective |
| IPA | /dɪsˈtɜː.bɪŋ/ |
| Letters | 10 |
| Frequency rank | #6,562 |
| Misspellings tracked | 16 |
| Confusable pairs | 2 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “disturbing” sits in English frequency
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for disturbing is 10 letters long, classified as an adjective, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /dɪsˈtɜː.bɪŋ/. Corpus data places it at rank #6,562 in overall English word frequency, indicating it appears regularly in written and spoken text. The dominant gloss from Wiktionary reads: "Causing distress or worry; upsetting or unsettling.".
Our generated misspelling index lists 16 likely wrong-spelling variants for disturbing, with forms such as "ddisturbing", "dissturbing", and "distrubing". 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 2 confusable-pair relationships, "disturbingly", "distorting", where similar look or sound leads writers to substitute one word for another in context.
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 disturbing, spelled D-I-S-T-U-R-B-I-N-G.
Definition
- 1Causing distress or worry; upsetting or unsettling.
This word in other languages
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as: ddisturbing,dissturbing,distrubing,distturbing,distubring,disturbbing,disturbign,disturbingg,disturbinng,disturbnig,disturibng,disturrbing,disutrbing,ditsurbing,dsiturbing,idsturbing
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
How far each generated variant is from the correct spelling of disturbing - 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 “disturbing”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct English spelling is D-I-S-T-U-R-B-I-N-G - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
- Say it as /dɪsˈtɜː.bɪŋ/ (IPA); tap the speaker on the pronunciation badge to hear it where audio exists.
- Don't mix it up with “disturbingly” - see the side-by-side comparison. disturbing vs disturbingly
- 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.