lurking
"lurking" is a 7-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“lurking” is a moderately-common English word, ranked #14,357 in English word frequency and used as a noun.
- #14,357
- frequency rank, English
- 7
- letters
- 11
- tracked misspellings
- 11
- confusable pairs
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - The act of one who lurks.
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 | lurking |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| Letters | 7 |
| Frequency rank | #14,357 |
| Misspellings tracked | 11 |
| Confusable pairs | 11 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “lurking” sits in English frequency
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for lurking is 7 letters long, classified as a noun. Corpus data places it at rank #14,357 in overall English word frequency, marking it as uncommon enough that many writers pause before typing it. The dominant gloss from Wiktionary reads: "The act of one who lurks.".
Our generated misspelling index lists 11 likely wrong-spelling variants for lurking, with forms such as "llurking", "lruking", and "lukring". 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 11 confusable-pair relationships, "liking", "Larkin", "luring", and more, since the words sound or look close enough that writers reach for the wrong one mid-sentence.
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 lurking, spelled L-U-R-K-I-N-G.
Definition
- 1The act of one who lurks.
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as: llurking,lruking,lukring,lurikng,lurkign,lurkingg,lurkinng,lurkking,lurknig,lurrking,ulrking
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
How far each generated variant is from the correct spelling of lurking - 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 “lurking”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct English spelling is L-U-R-K-I-N-G - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
- Don't mix it up with “liking” - see the side-by-side comparison. lurking vs liking
- 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.