foxing

noun

"foxing" is a 6-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.

The verdict

“foxing” is uncommon English (outside the top frequency list), classed as a noun. The kind of spelling people second-guess.

Unranked
below top-frequency English
6
letters

According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - The discoloration of printed material with brown marks.

Corpus desk

Index EN-foxing · foxing · English

foxing · unranked · 0 variants · 0 confusables

  • FREQ-UNRANKED Unranked
  • LEN-LONG 6 letters
  • VOW-2 2 vowels
  • CONFUS-0 No pairs
  • VAR-0 0 variants
  • BOOK-THIN "F" thin
  • PHOTO-UNK Peer pending

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.

Key facts for foxing
PropertyValue
Headwordfoxing
LanguageEnglish
Part of speechNoun
Letters6
Misspellings tracked0
Confusable pairs0
SourceWiktionary (kaikki.org)

Long-tail rank of “foxing” in English

foxingsits beyond the 100,000 most-frequent English words, in the long tail of technical, archaic, or otherwise rare vocabulary where spelling doubt tends to strike hardest.

Beyond rank #100,000. Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list.

Rare enough to double-check

foxing is uncommon English outside the top frequency list, classed as anoun. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. 4 senses are on record.

We couldn't generate a plausible misspelling set for foxing, since its letter pattern doesn't lend itself to common typo substitutions. 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 explicit etymology string is stored for this entry, so spelling patterns must be inferred from the word's phoneme-to-grapheme mapping rather than from a documented borrowing chain. The correct English form is foxing, spelled F-O-X-I-N-G.

Definition

  1. 1
    The discoloration of printed material with brown marks.
  2. 2
    A band of material joining the upper of a shoe to the sole.
  3. 3
    Crafty or wily behavior.
  4. 4
    Pretending to be asleep or unconscious.

Recorded use

Wiktionary example

These source excerpts show how foxing appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.

  1. "Here, wake up!" cried Silas. "None of your foxin'! Wake up! D'ye hear?" He shook him roughly by the shoulder, but the boy still slumbered on.

Definitions, pronunciation, and etymology for this entry are drawn from Wiktionary via the kaikki.org structured extract (CC BY-SA). See the methodology for how each field is sourced and updated.

Frequently Asked Questions

How do you spell "foxing"?
"foxing" is spelled F-O-X-I-N-G.
What does "foxing" mean?
As a noun, "foxing" means: The discoloration of printed material with brown marks.
What language does "foxing" come from?
"foxing" is a English word. PlainSpell's reference spans five languages -- English, Spanish, Portuguese, French, and German -- with definitions, pronunciations, and spelling data for each.
Is PlainSpell free to use?
Yes, PlainSpell is a completely free word reference. You can look up definitions, pronunciations, confusable pairs, homophones, and spelling corrections across 5 languages without any sign-up or subscription.

Source: Wiktionary (via kaikki.org) Structured Wiktionary extract

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list