Words such as accommodate, definitely, embarrass, occurrence, and separate are among the words people misspell most often in English. Below is a short quiz to test yourself, followed by 289 commonly misspelled words, sorted from A to Z.
English is full of grammar rules and guidelines. To make matters harder, there are also many words that people misspell all the time. Spelling English correctly is not easy to master, and spelling and grammar are an obstacle for students and writers everywhere.
As if that were not difficult enough, there are hundreds of words that sound the same but are spelled differently, such as their, they're, and there. These homophones cause many mistakes. Yet they are not the only culprits. You also have to deal with words that American and British English spell differently.
Take a good look at the list below and study it. Chances are that you have misspelled a few of these words yourself. If you tend to rely on your phone to fix them, here are a few reasons why you should stand up for autocorrect.
Test yourself first
Before you look at the whole list, try this short test. Which spelling is correct?
- reccomend, reccommend, recommend, or recomend
- argument, arguement, argumment, or argumemt
- consencus, consensus, consenssus, or concensus
- inadvertant, inadvertint, inadvertent, or inaadvertent
- amauteur, amateur, ammateur, or ameteur
The answers
- recommend
- argument
- consensus
- inadvertent
- amateur
If one or more of these words gave you trouble, don't worry: you are not alone. All five appear on many lists of commonly misspelled words.
289 commonly misspelled words
The list follows American spelling. Where British English differs, both spellings are correct in their own variety: British English writes analyse, jewellery, manoeuvre, neighbour, and paralyse, and often judgement and criticise. Whichever you use, keep your spelling consistent.
A: absence, accidentally, accommodate, accumulate, achievement, acquaintance, acquire, acquit, acquitted, advice, advise, amateur, among, analysis, analyze, annual, apartment, apparatus, apparent, appearance, arctic, arguing, argument, arithmetic, ascend, atheist, athletic, attendance
B: balance, battalion, beginning, belief, believe, bellwether, beneficial, benefited, boundaries, Britain, business
C: calendar, candidate, category, cemetery, changeable, changing, choose, chose, collectible, column, coming, commission, committed, committee, comparative, compelled, conceivable, conferred, conscience, conscientious, conscious, control, controversial, controversy, criticize
D: daiquiri, deferred, definite, definitely, definition, describe, description, desperate, dictionary, dining, disappearance, disappoint, disastrous, discipline, dissatisfied, dormitory, drunkenness, dumbbell
E: effect, eighth, eligible, eliminate, embarrass, eminent, encouragement, encouraging, environment, equipment, equipped, especially, exaggerate, exceed, excellence, exhilarate, existence, existent, experience, explanation
F: familiar, fascinate, February, fiery, foreign, formerly, forty, fourth, frantically
G: gauge, generally, government, grammar, grandeur, grateful, grievous
H: harass, height, heroes, hierarchy, hindrance, hoping, humorous, hypocrisy, hypocrite
I: ignorance, immediate, immediately, incidentally, incredible, independence, indispensable, inevitable, inoculate, intellectual, intelligence, interesting, irresistible, its/it's
J: jewelry, judgment
K: kernel, knowledge
L: laboratory, laid, led, leisure, liaison, library, license, lightning, loneliness, lose, losing
M: maintenance, maneuver, manufacture, marriage, mathematics, maybe, medieval, memento, mere, millennium, miniature, minuscule, mischievous, misspell, mysterious
N: necessary, neighbor, ninety, noticeable
O: occasionally, occurred, occurrence, omitted, opinion, opportunity, optimistic
P: paid, parallel, paralysis, paralyze, particular, pastime, performance, permissible, perseverance, personal, personnel, perspiration, physical, picnicking, playwright, possession, possibility, possible, potatoes, practically, precede, precedence, preference, preferred, prejudice, preparation, prevalent, principal/principle, privilege, probably, procedure, proceed, profession, professor, prominent, pronunciation, publicly, pursue
Q: quantity, questionnaire, quizzes
R: recede, receive/receipt, receiving, recommend, reference, referred, referring, relevant, repetition, restaurant, rhyme, rhythm, ridiculous
S: sacrifice, sacrilegious, salary, schedule, seize, sense, separate, separation, sergeant, severely, shining, similar, sincerely, sophomore, specifically, specimen, statue, studying, succeed, succession, supersede, surprise
T: technique, temperamental, tendency, their/they're/there, threshold, tragedy, transferring, tries, truly, twelfth, tyranny
U: unanimous, undoubtedly, unnecessary, until, usually
V: vacuum, village, villain
W: Wednesday, weird, whether/weather, woman, women, writing
Why do these words cause so much trouble? Read about the anatomy of misspellings, or find out how to spell difficult words. When you are not sure about a word in your own text, the Spell Checker checks each word against its dictionaries and marks the ones it does not find there.