plumbing
/ˈplʌmɪŋ/
"plumbing" is a 8-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“plumbing” is a moderately-common English word, ranked #13,215 in English word frequency and used as a noun.
- #13,215
- frequency rank, English
- 8
- letters
- 13
- tracked misspellings
- 4
- confusable pairs
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - The pipes, together with the joints, tanks, stopcocks, taps, and other fixtures of a water, gas, or sewage system in a house or other building.
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 | plumbing |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | /ˈplʌmɪŋ/ |
| Letters | 8 |
| Frequency rank | #13,215 |
| Misspellings tracked | 13 |
| Confusable pairs | 4 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “plumbing” sits in English frequency
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for plumbing is 8 letters long, classified as a noun, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /ˈplʌmɪŋ/. Corpus data places it at rank #13,215 in overall English word frequency, marking it as uncommon enough that many writers pause before typing it. Wiktionary records 6 distinct senses for this headword, so context determines which meaning a reader should apply.
Our generated misspelling index lists 13 likely wrong-spelling variants for plumbing, with forms such as "lpumbing", "pllumbing", and "plmubing". Every one of these variants traces to a single-character edit -- an added or dropped letter, a swapped consonant, or a vowel swap -- the kind of slip a spell-checker is built to catch. It also participates in 4 confusable-pair relationships, "pumping", "plunging", "plugging", and more, since the words sound or look close enough that writers reach for the wrong one mid-sentence.
Wiktionary doesn't record an etymology for this headword, so its spelling is best read as a straightforward mapping from sound to letter. The correct English form is plumbing, spelled P-L-U-M-B-I-N-G.
Definition
- 1The pipes, together with the joints, tanks, stopcocks, taps, and other fixtures of a water, gas, or sewage system in a house or other building.
- 2The trade or occupation of a plumber.
- 3A system of vessels or ducts in the human body, especially the genitourinary system.
- 4Practical, concrete work serving to support other work.
- 5A Murasugi sum where each disk summed along has its boundary subdivided into four segments.
- 6The genitourinary system.
This word in other languages
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as: lpumbing,pllumbing,plmubing,plubming,plumbbing,plumbign,plumbingg,plumbinng,plumbnig,plumibng,plummbing,pplumbing,pulmbing
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
How far each generated variant is from the correct spelling of plumbing - 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 “plumbing”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct English spelling is P-L-U-M-B-I-N-G - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
- Say it as /ˈplʌmɪŋ/ (IPA); tap the speaker on the pronunciation badge to hear it where audio exists.
- Don't mix it up with “pumping” - see the side-by-side comparison. plumbing vs pumping
- 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.