fishing
/ˈfɪʃɪŋ/
"fishing" is a 7-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“fishing” is a regularly-used English word, ranked #3,164 in English word frequency and used as a noun.
- #3,164
- frequency rank, English
- 7
- letters
- 11
- tracked misspellings
- 16
- confusable pairs
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - The act of catching fish.
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 | fishing |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | /ˈfɪʃɪŋ/ |
| Letters | 7 |
| Frequency rank | #3,164 |
| Misspellings tracked | 11 |
| Confusable pairs | 16 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “fishing” sits in English frequency
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for fishing is 7 letters long, classified as a noun, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /ˈfɪʃɪŋ/. Corpus data places it at rank #3,164 in overall English word frequency, indicating it appears regularly in written and spoken text. Wiktionary records 4 distinct senses for this headword, so context determines which meaning a reader should apply.
Our generated misspelling index lists 11 likely wrong-spelling variants for fishing, with forms such as "ffishing", "fihsing", and "fishhing". Every one of these variants traces to a single-character edit -- an added or dropped letter, a swapped consonant, or a vowel swap -- the kind of slip a spell-checker is built to catch. It also participates in 16 confusable-pair relationships, "fixing", "fusing", "fitting", and more, where similar look or sound leads writers to substitute one word for another in context.
Etymologically, the entry records: From Middle English fischynge, equivalent to fish + -ing. The correct English form is fishing, spelled F-I-S-H-I-N-G.
Definition
- 1The act of catching fish.
- 2The act of catching other forms of seafood, separately or together with fish.
- 3Commercial fishing: the business or industry of catching fish and other seafood for sale.
- 4A fishery, a place for catching fish.
Etymology
From Middle English fischynge, equivalent to fish + -ing.
Synonyms
This word in other languages
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as: ffishing,fihsing,fishhing,fishign,fishingg,fishinng,fishnig,fisihng,fisshing,fsihing,ifshing
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
How far each generated variant is from the correct spelling of fishing - 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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Using “fishing”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct English spelling is F-I-S-H-I-N-G - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
- Say it as /ˈfɪʃɪŋ/ (IPA); tap the speaker on the pronunciation badge to hear it where audio exists.
- Don't mix it up with “fixing” - see the side-by-side comparison. fishing vs fixing
- 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.