pursing

noun

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

The verdict

“pursing” is uncommon English (frequency #76,244 among 4,417 “P” headwords), classed as a noun. The kind of spelling people second-guess.

#76,244
frequency rank, English
4,417
“P” headwords

According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - An expression or motion that purses.

Corpus desk

Index EN-pursing · pursing · English

pursing · rank #76,244 · 0 variants · 0 confusables

  • FREQ-RARE #76,244
  • LEN-LONG 7 letters
  • VOW-2 2 vowels
  • CONFUS-0 No pairs
  • VAR-0 0 variants
  • BOOK-MID 4,417
  • PHOTO-FINISH pulver

Nearest frequency peer: pulver (-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.

Long-tail ranks near “pursing”

Sparse band: bars invert rank so rarer forms read shorter

corpus weight

What this shows Long-tail view: where “pursing” sits against similarly uncommon English ranks.

Source FrequencyWords open word-frequency list As of September 3, 2026
Key facts for pursing
PropertyValue
Headwordpursing
LanguageEnglish
Part of speechNoun
Letters7
Frequency rank#76,244
Misspellings tracked0
Confusable pairs0
SourceWiktionary (kaikki.org)

Long-tail rank of “pursing” in English

Every-word frequency runs from the handful of words we use constantly (left) to the long tail used once in a blue moon (right).pursingfalls in this rarity band:

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

Scale is logarithmic (each tick is 10× rarer). Rare peers in the same band: “pulver” (#76,243), “Putrajaya” (#76,245), “puzzlement” (#76,246). Among 4,417 “P” headwords, “pursing” is #76,244. Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list.

Rare enough to double-check

pursing is uncommon English at frequency #76,244 among 4,417 “P” headwords, classed as anoun. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. Gloss: "An expression or motion that purses.".

Our edit-distance generator produced no likely misspellings for pursing, a sign its spelling follows regular English conventions. We don't track a confusable pairing for this entry, since nothing in our dataset looks or sounds close enough to cause mix-ups.

This headword's origin isn't recorded in our source data, so its spelling is easiest explained by how it's pronounced rather than where it came from. The correct English form is pursing, spelled P-U-R-S-I-N-G.

Definition

  1. 1
    An expression or motion that purses.

Recorded use

Wiktionary example

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

  1. The muscles about the mouth exhibited puckering movements and occasional pursings and poutings of the lips.

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 "pursing"?
"pursing" is spelled P-U-R-S-I-N-G.
What does "pursing" mean?
As a noun, "pursing" means: An expression or motion that purses.
What language does "pursing" come from?
"pursing" is a English word. PlainSpell covers definitions, pronunciations, and spelling data across English, Spanish, Portuguese, French, and German.
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 "pursing", not the corpus desk frequency band.

Same letter count

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

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

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list