English spelling trips up native and second-language writers alike, in part because American, British, Australian, Canadian, and Irish English often spell the same word differently. This reference collects the most commonly misspelled and confused English words, with their correct spellings and the US and UK variants side by side.
The same word, spelled two ways. Pick one and stay consistent.
| US spelling | UK spelling |
|---|---|
| favorite | favourite |
| gray | grey |
| canceled | cancelled |
| diarrhea | diarrhoea |
| honor | honour |
| counselor | counsellor |
| traveling | travelling |
| behavior | behaviour |
| labor | labour |
| apologize | apologise |
| analyze | analyse |
| traveled | travelled |
| maneuver | manoeuvre |
| defense | defence |
| neighbor | neighbour |
| color | colour |
| jewelry | jewellery |
| program | programme |
| license | licence |
Word pairs that sound close but are not interchangeable.
| Word | How to tell them apart |
|---|---|
| lose vs. loose | 'Lose' is often confused with 'loose', a different word |
| dessert vs. desert | 'Dessert' (the sweet course) is often confused with 'desert' |
| resume | Two words with the same spelling but different pronunciations and meanings |
The correct spelling, plus the misspellings that show up most.
| Correct spelling | Common misspelling | Note |
|---|---|---|
| auntie / aunty | Both spellings are correct; 'aunt' is the root word | |
| Absence | abcense, absance, absense | |
| Acceptable | acceptible | |
| Accommodate | acommodate, accomodate | |
| Acknowledge | acknowelge, aknowledge | |
| Acquaintance | acquaintence, aquaintance | |
| A lot | alot | Incorrectly written as one word |
| Awful | awfull, aweful | |
| Because | becuase | |
| Beginning | begining | |
| Bureaucracy | bureacrucy | |
| Business | buisness | |
| Calendar | calender | |
| Colleague | collaegue, collegue | |
| Concede | conceed | |
| Conscience | concious, consious | |
| Consensus | concensus | |
| Embarrass | embarass | |
| Entrepreneur | entreprenure | |
| Fascinating | facinating | |
| Foreign | foriegn | |
| Government | goverment | |
| Guarantee | garantee, garentee, garanty | |
| Hygiene | hygene, higeine | |
| Immediately | imediately | |
| Independent | independant | |
| Intelligence | inteligence, intelligance | |
| Judgment | judgement | |
| Kernel | kernal | Also mistaken for its homophone 'colonel' |
| Leisure | liesure | |
| Liaison | liason | |
| Lightning | lightening | |
| Liquefy | liquafy, liquify | |
| Memento | momento | |
| Miniature | miniture | |
| Minuscule | miniscule | |
| Mischievous | mischievious, mischevious | |
| Misspell | mispell, misspel | |
| Necessary | neccessary, necessery | |
| Noticeable | noticable | |
| Occasion | occassion | |
| Occurrence | occurrance, occurence | |
| Outrageous | outragous | |
| Particularly | particulary | |
| Pastime | passtime, pasttime | |
| Plagiarize | plagerize | |
| Possession | posession, possesion | |
| Precede | preceed | |
| Presence | presance | |
| Privilege | privelege, priviledge | |
| Pronunciation | pronounciation | |
| Publicly | publically | |
| Queue | que | |
| Questionnaire | questionaire, questionnair | |
| Really | realy | |
| Recommend | recomend, reccommend | |
| Religious | religous, religius | |
| Separate | seperate | |
| Sergeant | sargent | |
| Successful | succesful, successfull, sucessful | |
| Supersede | supercede | |
| Tomorrow | tommorow, tommorrow | |
| Twelfth | twelth | |
| Tyranny | tyrany | |
| Underrate | underate | |
| Unnecessary | unecessary, unneccessary | |
| Upholstery | upholstry | |
| Vacuum | vaccuum, vaccum, vacume | |
| Withhold | withold | |
| Definitely | defenetly, definately | Trips up writers in every English-speaking country |
| Assess | asess, asses | |
| Potato | potatoe | Commonly misspelled in Ireland |
| Madam | madame | |
| Throat | throte | |
| Anniversary | aniversary | |
| Sympathy | The opening 'sy-' confuses some writers | |
| Believe | beleive | |
| Niece | neice | |
| Received | recieved | |
| Receipt | reciept | |
| Forty | fourty | 'Fourty' was once accepted but is now rare |
| Beautiful | The run of vowels confuses writers | |
| Gorgeous | The three vowels at the end confuse writers | |
| Bougie | Slang word that is difficult to spell | |
| Hors d'oeuvres | French loanword that confuses English writers | |
| Michael | Among the most commonly searched spellings worldwide |
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