Spelling
Refering or referring?
Referring is the right spelling. Refering is a common misspelling of it.
REFERING has one R where REFERRING has two.
Why people write REFERING
Double letters are not heard when the word is said, so it is easy to write only one. The doubling usually comes from how the word was built: a prefix that ends in the same letter as the root (ac + commodate), or a final consonant doubled before an ending (begin, beginning).
Refer + R + ing: double the R, because the stress is on -FER.
How often REFERRING is misspelled
In the web pages Google counted for its trillion-word corpus (Peter Norvig's word counts), REFERING appears 44 times for every 1,000 REFERRING, about once for every 23 correct uses.
Is REFERING a word?
No. REFERING is not in NWL2023, Collins Scrabble Words or ENABLE, the word lists Scrabble and other word games use, so no word game accepts it. REFERRING is in all three and scores 13 points in Scrabble before bonus squares.
What referring means
verb: To direct to a source for help or information.
For example: "There were lots of questions referring to her talk"
More words with the same mistake
One letter where there should be two:
More spelling help
Commonly misspelled words, grouped by the mistake · Free printables and word games for teachers · Unscramble any letters