insulting
/ɪnˈsʌltɪŋ/
"insulting" is a 9-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“insulting” is a moderately-common English word, ranked #11,237 in English word frequency and used as an adjective.
- #11,237
- frequency rank, English
- 9
- letters
- 14
- tracked misspellings
- 4
- confusable pairs
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - Containing insult, or having the intention of insulting.
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 | insulting |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Adjective |
| IPA | /ɪnˈsʌltɪŋ/ |
| Letters | 9 |
| Frequency rank | #11,237 |
| Misspellings tracked | 14 |
| Confusable pairs | 4 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “insulting” sits in English frequency
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for insulting is 9 letters long, classified as an adjective, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /ɪnˈsʌltɪŋ/. Corpus data places it at rank #11,237 in overall English word frequency, marking it as uncommon enough that many writers pause before typing it. The dominant gloss from Wiktionary reads: "Containing insult, or having the intention of insulting.".
Our generated misspelling index lists 14 likely wrong-spelling variants for insulting, with forms such as "innsulting", "insluting", and "inssulting". 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 4 confusable-pair relationships, "insulin", "insisting", "inserting", and more, where similar look or sound leads writers to substitute one word for another in context.
This entry carries no recorded etymology, 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 insulting, spelled I-N-S-U-L-T-I-N-G.
Definition
- 1Containing insult, or having the intention of insulting.
This word in other languages
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as: innsulting,insluting,inssulting,insulitng,insullting,insultign,insultingg,insultinng,insultnig,insultting,insutling,inuslting,isnulting,nisulting
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
How far each generated variant is from the correct spelling of insulting - 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 “insulting”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct English spelling is I-N-S-U-L-T-I-N-G - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
- Say it as /ɪnˈsʌltɪŋ/ (IPA); tap the speaker on the pronunciation badge to hear it where audio exists.
- Don't mix it up with “insulin” - see the side-by-side comparison. insulting vs insulin
- 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.