winking
"winking" is a 7-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“winking” is a moderately-common English word, ranked #36,397 in English word frequency and used as a noun.
- #36,397
- frequency rank, English
- 7
- letters
- 11
- tracked misspellings
- 17
- confusable pairs
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - The act of someone who winks.
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 | winking |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| Letters | 7 |
| Frequency rank | #36,397 |
| Misspellings tracked | 11 |
| Confusable pairs | 17 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “winking” sits in English frequency
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for winking is 7 letters long, classified as a noun. Corpus data places it at rank #36,397 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 someone who winks.".
Our generated misspelling index lists 11 likely wrong-spelling variants for winking, with forms such as "iwnking", "wikning", and "winikng". 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 17 confusable-pair relationships, "wiring", "wiping", "Woking", and more, a pairing that trips writers up because the two words share enough sound or shape to blur together.
No explicit etymology string is stored for this entry, so its spelling is easiest to reason about phoneme by phoneme, absent a documented history. The correct English form is winking, spelled W-I-N-K-I-N-G.
Definition
- 1The act of someone who winks.
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as: iwnking,wikning,winikng,winkign,winkingg,winkinng,winkking,winknig,winnking,wniking,wwinking
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
How far each generated variant is from the correct spelling of winking - 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 “winking”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct English spelling is W-I-N-K-I-N-G - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
- Don't mix it up with “wiring” - see the side-by-side comparison. winking vs wiring
- 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.