smirking
"smirking" is a 8-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“smirking” is a moderately-common English word, ranked #43,923 in English word frequency and used as a noun.
- #43,923
- frequency rank, English
- 8
- letters
- 13
- tracked misspellings
- 12
- confusable pairs
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - The act of one who smirks.
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 | smirking |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| Letters | 8 |
| Frequency rank | #43,923 |
| Misspellings tracked | 13 |
| Confusable pairs | 12 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “smirking” sits in English frequency
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for smirking is 8 letters long, classified as a noun. Corpus data places it at rank #43,923 in overall English word frequency, marking it as uncommon enough that many writers pause before typing it. The dominant gloss from Wiktionary reads: "The act of one who smirks.".
Our generated misspelling index lists 13 likely wrong-spelling variants for smirking, with forms such as "msirking", "simrking", and "smikring". 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 12 confusable-pair relationships, "smoking", "spiking", "sticking", and more, since the words sound or look close enough that writers reach for the wrong one mid-sentence.
No explicit etymology string is stored for this entry, so its spelling is best read as a straightforward mapping from sound to letter. The correct English form is smirking, spelled S-M-I-R-K-I-N-G.
Definition
- 1The act of one who smirks.
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as: msirking,simrking,smikring,smirikng,smirkign,smirkingg,smirkinng,smirkking,smirknig,smirrking,smmirking,smriking,ssmirking
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
How far each generated variant is from the correct spelling of smirking - 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 “smirking”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct English spelling is S-M-I-R-K-I-N-G - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
- Don't mix it up with “smoking” - see the side-by-side comparison. smirking vs smoking
- 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.