sailing
/ˈseɪ.lɪŋ/
"sailing" is a 7-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“sailing” is a regularly-used English word, ranked #7,283 in English word frequency and used as a verb.
- #7,283
- frequency rank, English
- 7
- letters
- 10
- tracked misspellings
- 20
- confusable pairs
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - present participle and gerund of sail
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 | sailing |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Verb |
| IPA | /ˈseɪ.lɪŋ/ |
| Letters | 7 |
| Frequency rank | #7,283 |
| Misspellings tracked | 10 |
| Confusable pairs | 20 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “sailing” sits in English frequency
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for sailing is 7 letters long, classified as a verb, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /ˈseɪ.lɪŋ/. Corpus data places it at rank #7,283 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 sail".
Our generated misspelling index lists 10 likely wrong-spelling variants for sailing, with forms such as "asiling", "saiilng", and "sailign". 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, "sling", "saying", "saving", 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 Middle English saylinge, seilinge, variants of sailende, seilende; equivalent to sail + -ing. Cognate with Dutch zeilend (“sailing”). The correct English form is sailing, spelled S-A-I-L-I-N-G.
Definition
- 1present participle and gerund of sail
Etymology
From Middle English saylinge, seilinge, variants of sailende, seilende; equivalent to sail + -ing. Cognate with Dutch zeilend (“sailing”).
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as: asiling,saiilng,sailign,sailingg,sailinng,sailling,sailnig,saliing,sialing,ssailing
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
How far each generated variant is from the correct spelling of sailing - 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 “sailing”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct English spelling is S-A-I-L-I-N-G - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
- Say it as /ˈseɪ.lɪŋ/ (IPA); tap the speaker on the pronunciation badge to hear it where audio exists.
- Don't mix it up with “sling” - see the side-by-side comparison. sailing vs sling
- 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.