dying
/ˈdaɪ.ɪŋ/adjective, noun, verb
dying is spelled D-Y-I-N-G. The wrong spelling people search most is dieing: about 1,040 Bing searches a month in the United States (September 2025 to August 2026), about 3 in 10 of all searches for the word. Dying is an adjective meaning “Approaching death; about to die; moribund”.
How many letters and syllables are in dying?
| Letters | 5: D-Y-I-N-G |
|---|---|
| Syllables | 2 (from its American pronunciation) |
| In writing | 43 times per million words; the 2,339th most frequent word form |
| Wrong spellings searched | 1; the most searched, dieing, about 1,040 Bing searches a month (all of them) |
| Sounds like | |
| Same letters |
Sources: letters and syllables from the English Wiktionary's hyphenation or pronunciation and the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary; written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media); Bing searches in the United States: the average month from September 2025 to August 2026 (Microsoft Advertising keyword data through DataForSEO, read September 30, 2026); rhymes and same-letter words are computed by PlainSpell from its own word list.
How do you spell dying?
Dying is spelled D-Y-I-N-G. One wrong spelling is searched or written often enough to measure; together they are about 3 in 10 of the searches for dying in either form.
Bing searches in the United States: the average month from September 2025 to August 2026 (Microsoft Advertising keyword data through DataForSEO, read September 30, 2026). Wrong spellings are taken from Wiktionary entries tagged "misspelling" and its obsolete or nonstandard forms, Wikipedia's Lists of common misspellings and the codespell dictionary, then measured. The proofreader's marks show the change that corrects each one.
How common is dying?
Dying appears 43 times per million words in written English, the 2,339th most frequent word form in the list.
Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).
How do you pronounce dying?
- /ˈdaɪ.ɪŋ/
Dying has 2 syllables (counted from its American pronunciation in the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary).
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Recordings: En-us-dying.ogg, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).
Words people confuse with dying
Sounds like: dyeing (Wiktionary's homophone list; some hold only in some accents).
Sources: English Wiktionary (homophones, alternative spellings).
What rhymes with dying?
No other word on PlainSpell ends in the same sounds as dying.
Spelled with the same letters in another order: dingy.
Computed by PlainSpell from the pronunciations in the English Wiktionary (dump of September 2, 2026): a rhyme shares every sound from the last stressed vowel to the end; ordered by written frequency (wordfreq 3.1).
Forms of dying
- dyings plural
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
What does dying mean?
The meanings the English Wiktionary records, quoted as written there (source below).
adjective
- 1
Approaching death; about to die; moribund.
The dying dog was put out of his misery with a single shot!
- 2
Declining, terminal, or drawing to an end.
In the dying moments of daylight I glimpsed a sail on the horizon.
- 3
Pertaining to death, or the moments before death.
His dying words were of his mother.
noun
- 1
The process of approaching death; loss of life; death.
verb
- 1
present participle and gerund of die
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
Dying in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese
| Language | Words |
|---|---|
| French | mourant |
| German | sterbend, im Sterben liegen , Sterben |
| Portuguese | morrente, moribundo , de morte |
| Spanish | moribundo, mortecino |
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Translations are Wiktionary's, by sense; a linked word has its own PlainSpell page.
Where does dying come from?
From die + -ing.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).