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Hoping vs. Hopping—What’s the Difference?

Updated on May 7, 2019Grammar

Even though the difference in spelling between hoping and hopping is just one letter, the difference in meaning is actually much bigger. All you need to do is hope and hop to see how big a difference it is.

What is the difference between hoping and hopping?

When you look up the definition of hoping and the definition of hopping, you notice that they have one thing in common—both are present participles. Hoping is the present participle of the verb hope, and hopping is the present participle of the verb hop.

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To hope for something means that we want it to happen. We use hoping to form one of the progressive tenses, like the present progressive and the past progressive:

I am still hoping I’ll go to Paris by the end of the year.

He was hoping you’d have time to talk before you left.

To hop, on the other hand, is to make a small jump, and we use the form hopping like this:

The bunny was hopping happily in the backyard.

You will be hopping on one foot until your other foot heals.

The past tense forms of hope and hop can also be easily mixed up. The past tense of hope is hoped and the past tense of hop is hopped.

Peter hoped he’d never have to sit another test again.

Peter hopped across the cold floor to get his other sock.

How to remember the difference

The best way to remember the difference between hoping and hopping is to remember the “c-v-c rule.” If the last three letters of a verb are a consonant, a vowel, and another consonant, double the last consonant. If you know this, it’s obvious that hopping is the inflected form of hop, because hope doesn’t fit the c-v-c rule.

Hoping vs. hopping examples

Andy Murray is hoping all his big rivals will offer him competition for the number one ranking in 2017.
Belfast Telegraph

SpaceX is hoping to reach speeds of up to 1 Gbps, about 200 times faster than the average user’s connection.
The Huffington Post UK

That’s right, I’m hopping on the Jake-Browning-for-the-Heisman bandwagon.
HeraldNet

That’s exactly what this teenager found when he hopped into the car for the drive back from work.
Yahoo! News UK

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