surpassing
"surpassing" is a 10-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“surpassing” is a moderately-common English word, ranked #23,410 in English word frequency and used as an adjective.
- #23,410
- frequency rank, English
- 10
- letters
- 14
- tracked misspellings
- 1
- confusable pair
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - Becoming superior to others; becoming excellent; exceptional; exceeding.
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 | surpassing |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Adjective |
| Letters | 10 |
| Frequency rank | #23,410 |
| Misspellings tracked | 14 |
| Confusable pairs | 1 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “surpassing” sits in English frequency
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for surpassing is 10 letters long, classified as an adjective. Corpus data places it at rank #23,410 in overall English word frequency, marking it as uncommon enough that many writers pause before typing it. The dominant gloss from Wiktionary reads: "Becoming superior to others; becoming excellent; exceptional; exceeding.".
Our generated misspelling index lists 14 likely wrong-spelling variants for surpassing, with forms such as "srupassing", "ssurpassing", and "suprassing". Each variant is a distinct typo pattern an edit-distance generator flags, typically a doubled-consonant error, a silent-letter drop, or a vowel substitution. It also participates in 1 confusable-pair relationship, "surprising", since the words sound or look close enough that writers reach for the wrong one mid-sentence.
Wiktionary doesn't record an etymology for this headword, leaving phoneme-to-grapheme mapping as the best guide to its spelling rather than a borrowing history. The correct English form is surpassing, spelled S-U-R-P-A-S-S-I-N-G.
Definition
- 1Becoming superior to others; becoming excellent; exceptional; exceeding.
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as: srupassing,ssurpassing,suprassing,surapssing,surpasing,surpasisng,surpassign,surpassingg,surpassinng,surpassnig,surppassing,surpsasing,surrpassing,usrpassing
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
How far each generated variant is from the correct spelling of surpassing - expressed in single-character edits (insert, delete, or swap one letter). Bigger bars stand out at a glance; a one-edit slip is the hardest to catch.
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 “surpassing”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct English spelling is S-U-R-P-A-S-S-I-N-G - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
- Don't mix it up with “surprising” - see the side-by-side comparison. surpassing vs surprising
- 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.