Stationery with an e is writing material: paper, envelopes, and pens. Stationary with an a is an adjective that means standing still, not moving. To tell them apart, think of e for envelopes and a for staying in place.
Students, and anyone who wants to spell correctly, often ask how to tell stationary and stationery apart. The two words sound almost the same, and their spelling differs by only one letter, so they confuse many people. This guide explains which one to use, with a few tips to help you remember.
What stationery means
Stationery is writing material, especially writing paper. It is what people use to write in offices, at school, and anywhere else. Writing paper sold as stationery often comes with matching envelopes.
Stationery is usually an uncountable noun: you buy some stationery, or a lot of stationery, not "stationeries".
One of the best tricks for remembering the difference between stationery and stationary is the letter e in the first word. Stationery has an e in its ending: link that e with envelopes. Once you remember that the e in stationery stands for envelopes, it is much easier to tell the two words apart and to spell them correctly. For more words that trip people up, see the 289 words most commonly misspelled in English.
Here are a few sentences that use stationery correctly:
- The stationery used by the bank was very professional and even had matching envelopes.
- Tom was reprimanded at work for using office stationery for personal letters.
- We loved the selection of school supplies in the new stationery store at the mall.
What stationary means
Stationary is easier to remember and use than stationery, because it simply means staying put, in a fixed place. It can describe a person, a place, or a thing, such as a child who stays put or an exercise bike in a gym. Unlike stationery, stationary is an adjective.
An interesting fact: stationary is much older than stationery. It was in use in the late Middle Ages, while stationery appeared in the 18th century. Both go back to the Latin stationarius: a stationer was a bookseller who sold from a fixed stall rather than traveling around, and the paper and pens he sold became known as stationery.
A tip for remembering the difference is the letter a in stationary. Think of words such as stay, stand, and static, and link their a with the a in stationary. You may also find there, their, and they're useful, another set of words that sound alike.
Here are some sentences that use stationary correctly:
- One thing that made the job easier for the crew was that the object was stationary.
- Stationary bicycles are great for working out, but they can be boring, since you don't really go anywhere.
- The mother told her two restless children to remain stationary until she was done.
- Traffic was stationary for an hour after the accident.
Because both spellings are real words, a check against a dictionary alone does not flag the wrong one. The AI Spell Checker reads whole sentences, so it can catch stationary where you meant stationery.