Which to use
“hacking” is a noun and “Hawking” is a name - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.
- #37,851
- “hacking” frequency rank
- #38,334
- “Hawking” frequency rank
- 76185
- confusion score
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Feature | hacking | Hawking |
|---|---|---|
| Definition | Hackage. | Nom de famille. |
Letter map: hacking vs Hawking
Shared letters muted; letters that set hacking and Hawking apart highlighted. Shared run: 6.
Grammar separator: hacking vs Hawking
Our dataset has no pronunciation recorded for both members, so the reliable separator here is grammatical: hacking is anoun and Hawkinganame. On the page they differ by a single letter - c in “hacking” becomes w in “Hawking”. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 76185, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.
hacking is recorded at frequency rank #37,851, classified as anoun, pronounced ^((h aspiré))\a.kiŋ\. Hawking is at rank #38,334, tagged as aname.
Glosses for this pair are partially populated in our dataset, but the full side-by-side definitions above should still guide you to the right choice.
With a confusion score of 76185, this pair ranks #31,853 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.
Orthographic DNA of hacking vs Hawking
Shared letters: aghikn. Private to "hacking": c. Private to "Hawking": w.
"hacking" · 7 letters · shape CVCCVCC · "Hawking" · 7 letters · shape CVCCVCC
Known mistypes of this pair
Frequently Asked Questions
Is swapping "hacking" for "Hawking" ever safe?
Frequency check: "hacking" vs "Hawking" - which ranks higher?
What to do next
You've compared "hacking" and "Hawking". Here's where to go from here.
- Full dictionary entry for "hacking" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
- Full dictionary entry for "Hawking" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
- This pair ranks #31,853 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
- "hacking" and "Hawking" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "having vs Hawking". Nearby pair
- Recorded mistypes exist for at least one side of this pair, useful when a spell-checker or OCR lands on the wrong form. See mistypes
Confusion rank #31,853 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.