guessing
/ˈɡɛsɪŋ/
"guessing" is a 8-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“guessing” is a regularly-used English word, ranked #7,798 in English word frequency and used as a noun.
- #7,798
- frequency rank, English
- 8
- letters
- 10
- tracked misspellings
- 3
- confusable pairs
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - The act of making a guess; estimate or prediction; foresight.
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 | guessing |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | /ˈɡɛsɪŋ/ |
| Letters | 8 |
| Frequency rank | #7,798 |
| Misspellings tracked | 10 |
| Confusable pairs | 3 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “guessing” sits in English frequency
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for guessing is 8 letters long, classified as a noun, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /ˈɡɛsɪŋ/. Corpus data places it at rank #7,798 in overall English word frequency, indicating it appears regularly in written and spoken text. The dominant gloss from Wiktionary reads: "The act of making a guess; estimate or prediction; foresight.".
Our generated misspelling index lists 10 likely wrong-spelling variants for guessing, with forms such as "geussing", "gguessing", and "guesing". Each variant is a distinct typo pattern an edit-distance generator flags, typically a doubled-consonant error, a silent-letter drop, or a vowel substitution. It also participates in 3 confusable-pair relationships, "gushing", "gusting", "gassing", where similar look or sound leads writers to substitute one word for another in context.
Etymologically, the entry records: From Middle English gessyng, gessynge, equivalent to guess + -ing. The correct English form is guessing, spelled G-U-E-S-S-I-N-G.
Definition
- 1The act of making a guess; estimate or prediction; foresight.
Etymology
From Middle English gessyng, gessynge, equivalent to guess + -ing.
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as: geussing,gguessing,guesing,guesisng,guessign,guessingg,guessinng,guessnig,gusesing,ugessing
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
How far each generated variant is from the correct spelling of guessing - 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 “guessing”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct English spelling is G-U-E-S-S-I-N-G - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
- Say it as /ˈɡɛsɪŋ/ (IPA); tap the speaker on the pronunciation badge to hear it where audio exists.
- Don't mix it up with “gushing” - see the side-by-side comparison. guessing vs gushing
- 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.