Hopeing or Hoping – Which Spelling Is Correct?

Some people may doubt how to write the -ing form of the verb “hope”. The usual options are “hopeing” and “hoping”. However, only one of them is the correct spelling. If this is your doubt, keep on reading and you will have the answers you need.

Hopeing or Hoping – Which Spelling Is Correct?

To spell the -ing form of the verb hope correctly, you need to erase the letter “e” and write “hoping”. “Hopeing”, on the other hand, is an incorrect way of spelling the verb and it is simply not an accepted word in the English language.

Even though the difference between them is just one letter, “hopeing” is a misspelling of the word. As a consequence, it is not an interchangeable word or a synonym for “hoping”.

Hopeing

To write “hopeing” instead of “hoping” is a very common spelling mistake. The verb is “hope” and it ends with a silent “e”, meaning we don’t pronounce it. Therefore, when we want to add the suffix -ing, the silent “e” is removed. This is why “hopeing” is incorrectly spelled.

When we visited the Cambridge Dictionary, it was not surprising to find that the word “hopeing” is not included as an English word. This is why the dictionary offers other words similar in spelling.

Let’s see now some incorrect examples with the word “hopeing” in a sentence:

1. Incorrect: Everybody keeps on telling me that everything will be okay in the end, but to be honest, I was hopeing things start changing now because I’m beginning to believe I’m cursed or something.
2. Incorrect: Last night, she buried her face in my shoulder, hopeing I didn’t notice she was so upset. I could tell, obviously, but I respected her decision.
3. Incorrect: Great news you’re here! I was hopeing to find you today; I’ve been wanting to talk to you for ages!
4. Incorrect: He left to have a very serious discussion with his father. He wasn’t really positive about it; however, I keep on hopeing he’s mistaken and his dad finally agrees to what he desires.
5. Incorrect: The island people live mostly on tourism; therefore, the pandemic was so drastic here. A new wave of the virus has been mentioned, but they’re still hopeing it doesn’t come here this time.

Hoping

 “Hoping” is the -ing form of the verb “hope”, which means we truly want something to happen. The English grammar rule states that when the last letter of a word is not pronounced, like in “hope”, it should be removed when the suffix -ing is added at the end.

We decided to visit the Cambridge Dictionary to check the information provided, and we found the definitions of the word “hope”, as a noun and as a verb. As a verb, “hoping” derives from “hope”; the definition is given above.

Now, let’s see examples with the word “hoping” used correctly in a sentence:

1. Last year, I went on a trip to Latin America and it was wonderful. However, I wasn’t able to visit all the countries. I’m hoping I can go again next year and visit what was left.
2. My work colleague’s been having a lot of trouble with the coordinator because she finds him very rude. I agree with her, so we were hoping we could have a meeting with our boss and discuss the matter.
3. I’d love to join you guys, but I have no way of coming back. That’s why I was hoping that maybe you could give me a lift when you come back to the city.
4. Is he still here? I was hoping he’d have left by now. I sincerely cannot stand his constant arrogant speech.
5. All the people were gathered by the palace, hoping to be able to see the future King’s wife.

Which Is Used the Most?

If one wants to be sure and check on some word’s popularity, a good tool to use is Google Ngram Viewer. Let’s see which information we get if we check the usage of the words “hopeing” and “hoping”.

On one hand, it is clear that the word “hopeing” is hardly popular since the chart shows it has not been used for the last century. This is because the word can only be found when “hoping” is written incorrectly.

As for the word, “hoping”, on the other hand, the results are different, as it is a correctly spelled word. The curve stays constant from 1900 until 1976, which is when it rises and depicts an increase in its popularity.

 Final Thoughts

To write the -ing form of the verb “hope” correctly, you have to remove the silent letter “e” before adding the suffix at the end of the word and write “hoping”. If you write “hopeing”, on the contrary, it will be incorrect.