likening
"likening" is a 8-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“likening” is uncommon English (frequency #58,150 among 16,425 “L” headwords), classed as a noun. The kind of spelling people second-guess.
- #58,150
- frequency rank, English
- 16,425
- “L” headwords
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - The act by which things are likened; a comparison.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | likening |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| Letters | 8 |
| Frequency rank | #58,150 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “likening” sits in English frequency
Rare enough to double-check
likening is uncommon English at frequency #58,150 among 16,425 “L” headwords, classed as anoun. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. Gloss: "The act by which things are likened; a comparison.".
We couldn't generate a plausible misspelling set for likening, since its letter sequence doesn't invite the usual edit-distance slips. No close-neighbour confusable shows up for this headword in our dataset, since nothing in our dataset looks or sounds close enough to cause mix-ups.
No documented word history exists for this headword, so its spelling pattern is best understood through pronunciation rather than a traceable origin. The correct English form is likening, spelled L-I-K-E-N-I-N-G.
Definition
- 1The act by which things are likened; a comparison.
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 “likening”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct English spelling is L-I-K-E-N-I-N-G - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
- Browse more English words and confusable pairs in the same reference. English words
Other uncommon English words near this rank
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.