praying

noun

By · According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA) ·

"praying" is a 7-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.

The verdict

“praying” has 11 generated spelling variants in the English index at frequency #7,265. The variants make it a useful spelling check.

#7,265
frequency rank, English
4,417
“P” headwords
11
tracked misspellings
20
confusable pairs

According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - An act of saying a prayer.

Corpus desk

Index EN-praying · praying · English

praying · rank #7,265 · 11 variants · 20 confusables

  • FREQ-COMMON #7,265
  • LEN-LONG 7 letters
  • VOW-3 3 vowels
  • CONFUS-HIGH 20 pairs
  • VAR-MID 11 variants
  • BOOK-MID 4,417
  • PHOTO-FINISH practicing

Nearest frequency peer: practicing (-1 rank slots)

Read with this headword: Spelling guide for this pattern

Desk codes from Wiktionary headword shape, FrequencyWords rank tier, confusable-pair count, generated misspelling depth, letter-cohort book size, and photo-finish peer. Not a difficulty grade.

Rank peers near misspelling magnet “praying”

Same rarity band: useful when a typo lands on a peer headword

corpus weight

What this shows “praying” sits among these FrequencyWords peers; misspelling depth is tracked separately in the edit-distance chart.

Source FrequencyWords open word-frequency list As of September 3, 2026

Visual similarity to commonly confused words

How many letter changes separate each confused pair (Levenshtein distance, normalized).

praying vs prying
86% similar
praying vs pricing
71% similar
praying vs proving
71% similar

Source: PlainSpell confusable corpus (Wiktionary, CC BY-SA).

Key facts for praying
PropertyValue
Headwordpraying
LanguageEnglish
Part of speechNoun
Letters7
Frequency rank#7,265
Misspellings tracked11
Confusable pairs20
SourceWiktionary (kaikki.org)

Frequency seat of misspelling magnet “praying”

Word frequency stretches from the small set of words we reach for constantly (left) out to the long tail barely used once in a while (right).prayinglands here:

#1#100#1K#10K#100K
← used constantlyrarely used →

Scale is logarithmic (each tick is 10× rarer). Same rarity band neighbours include “practicing” (#7,264), “probe” (#7,266), “prohibited” (#7,267). Among 4,417 “P” headwords, “praying” is #7,265. Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list.

A misspelling magnet

The generator records 11 spelling variants around praying, anoun. Corpus frequency is #7,265 among 4,417 “P” headwords. Dominant gloss: "An act of saying a prayer.".

Our generated misspelling index lists 11 likely wrong-spelling variants for praying, with forms such as "parying", "ppraying", and "praiyng". 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, "prying", "pricing", "proving", and more, where similar look or sound leads writers to substitute one word for another in context.

This entry's etymology isn't recorded, so its spelling is easiest to reason about phoneme by phoneme, absent a documented history. The correct English form is praying, spelled P-R-A-Y-I-N-G.

Definition

  1. 1
    An act of saying a prayer.

Recorded use

Wiktionary example

These source excerpts show how praying appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.

  1. c. 1854-1855, John Walford, Memoirs of the Life and Labours of the Late Venerable Hugh Bourne However, after breakfast, the prayings did not stop for the preachings, — each went on with force; people came flocking in; we had Wesleyans in abundance.

Common misspellings

Also misspelled as:

  • parying
  • ppraying
  • praiyng
  • prayign
  • prayingg
  • prayinng
  • praynig
  • prayying
  • prraying
  • pryaing
  • rpaying

Misspelling Pattern Breakdown

How far each generated variant is from the correct spelling of praying - 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.

parying2ppraying1praiyng2prayign2prayingg1prayinng1praynig2prayying1
Edit distance from "praying"

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

How do you spell "praying"?
"praying" is spelled P-R-A-Y-I-N-G.
What does "praying" mean?
As a noun, "praying" means: An act of saying a prayer.
What words are commonly confused with "praying"?
"praying" is commonly confused with "prying", "pricing", "proving". These words look or sound similar but have different meanings. PlainSpell provides detailed comparisons for each pair.
What language does "praying" come from?
"praying" is a English word. PlainSpell's reference spans five languages -- English, Spanish, Portuguese, French, and German -- with definitions, pronunciations, and spelling data for each.
Is PlainSpell free to use?
Yes, PlainSpell is a completely free word reference. You can look up definitions, pronunciations, confusable pairs, homophones, and spelling corrections across 5 languages without any sign-up or subscription.

Similar English words by spelling shape

Same letter count and similar misspelling depth for "praying", not the corpus desk frequency band.

Same letter count

Frequency-ranked English headwords with 7 letters (nearest by frequency rank).

pirates#7,262propose#7,269sailing#7,283slipped#7,286

Similar misspelling depth

Headwords with a similar count of attested misspellings (11 here; floor ≥5).

outbreak11 variantsStevens11 variantshonesty11 variantsfreight11 variants

Source: Wiktionary (via kaikki.org) Structured Wiktionary extract

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list