smarting
"smarting" is a 8-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“smarting” is uncommon English (frequency #67,840 among 6,566 “S” headwords), classed as an adjective. The kind of spelling people second-guess.
- #67,840
- frequency rank, English
- 6,566
- “S” headwords
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - Painful, sore.
Corpus desk
Index EN-smarting · smarting · English
smarting · rank #67,840 · 0 variants · 0 confusables
- FREQ-RARE #67,840
- LEN-LONG 8 letters
- VOW-2 2 vowels
- CONFUS-0 No pairs
- VAR-0 0 variants
- BOOK-DENSE 6,566
- PHOTO-FINISH smallholder
Nearest frequency peer: smallholder (-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 “smarting”
Sparse band: bars invert rank so rarer forms read shorter
- Sklar
Sklar
32,165 corpus weight
- slippy
slippy
32,164 corpus weight
- Slovene
Slovene
32,163 corpus weight
- smallholder
smallholder
32,162 corpus weight
- smarting
smarting
32,161 corpus weight
- smidgen
smidgen
32,160 corpus weight
What this shows Long-tail view: where “smarting” sits against similarly uncommon English ranks.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | smarting |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Adjective |
| Letters | 8 |
| Frequency rank | #67,840 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Long-tail rank of “smarting” in English
Rare enough to double-check
smarting is uncommon English at frequency #67,840 among 6,566 “S” headwords, classed as anadjective. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. 2 senses are on record.
Our edit-distance generator produced no likely misspellings for smarting, typically a sign the spelling maps closely to how the word sounds. This headword has no recorded confusable partner, which typically means the spelling is too distinctive to be mistaken for another word.
Etymologically, the entry records: From Middle English smertyng, smertinge, from Old English smeortung, smertung (“smarting, itching”), equivalent to smart + -ing. The correct English form is smarting, spelled S-M-A-R-T-I-N-G.
Definition
- 1Painful, sore.
- 2Experiencing emotional pain or embarrassment.
Recorded use
Wiktionary exampleThese source excerpts show how smarting appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.
My arm is still smarting from where the ball hit it.
Etymology
From Middle English smertyng, smertinge, from Old English smeortung, smertung (“smarting, itching”), equivalent to smart + -ing.
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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Similar English words by spelling shape
Same letter count and similar misspelling depth for "smarting", not the corpus desk frequency band.
Same letter count
Frequency-ranked English headwords with 8 letters (nearest by frequency rank).