passing
/ˈpɑːsɪŋ/
"passing" is a 7-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“passing” is a regularly-used English word, ranked #2,362 in English word frequency and used as a verb.
- #2,362
- frequency rank, English
- 7
- letters
- 9
- tracked misspellings
- 20
- confusable pairs
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - present participle and gerund of pass
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 | passing |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Verb |
| IPA | /ˈpɑːsɪŋ/ |
| Letters | 7 |
| Frequency rank | #2,362 |
| Misspellings tracked | 9 |
| Confusable pairs | 20 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “passing” sits in English frequency
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for passing is 7 letters long, classified as a verb, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /ˈpɑːsɪŋ/. Corpus data places it at rank #2,362 in overall English word frequency, indicating it appears regularly in written and spoken text. The dominant gloss from Wiktionary reads: "present participle and gerund of pass".
Our generated misspelling index lists 9 likely wrong-spelling variants for passing, with forms such as "apssing", "pasing", and "pasisng". Each of these forms differs from the correct spelling by one small edit: a doubled letter, a dropped silent letter, or a substituted vowel. It also participates in 20 confusable-pair relationships, "paying", "posing", "paving", and more, a pairing that trips writers up because the two words share enough sound or shape to blur together.
Etymologically, the entry records: From pass + -ing. The correct English form is passing, spelled P-A-S-S-I-N-G.
Definition
- 1present participle and gerund of pass
Etymology
From pass + -ing.
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as: apssing,pasing,pasisng,passign,passingg,passinng,passnig,ppassing,psasing
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
How far each generated variant is from the correct spelling of passing - counted as single-character edits (an insertion, a deletion, or a substituted letter). The larger the bar, the easier the typo is to spot; one-edit slips are the ones that sneak past readers.
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 “passing”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct English spelling is P-A-S-S-I-N-G - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
- Say it as /ˈpɑːsɪŋ/ (IPA); tap the speaker on the pronunciation badge to hear it where audio exists.
- Don't mix it up with “paying” - see the side-by-side comparison. passing vs paying
- 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.