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American and British English spelling differences

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American and British English spelling differences

Among the differences between American and British English (Commonwealth English) are spelling differences, many of which date back to times when English spelling was not widely standardized. Some spellings seen as "American" today, for instance, were once commonly used in Britain; and vice versa. "American standard" and "British standard" spellings emerged during the 19th century, however, prompted by the publication of influential dictionaries such as Noah Webster's An American Dictionary of the English Language and Samuel Johnson's A Dictionary of the English Language.

Historical origins




For the most part, the spelling systems of most Commonwealth countries and Ireland closely resemble the British system. In Canada, the spelling system can be said to follow both British and American forms,[3] and Canadians are somewhat more tolerant of foreign spellings when compared with other English-speaking nationalities.[4] Australian spelling has also strayed somewhat from British spelling, with some American spellings incorporated as standard.[5] New Zealand spelling is almost identical to British spelling, except in the word fiord (instead of fjord). There is also an increasing use of macrons in words that originated in Māori and an unambiguous preference for -ise endings (see below).

Latin-derived spellings

-our, -or


Most words of this kind came from Latin, where the ending was spelled -or. They were first borrowed into English from early Old French, and the ending was spelled -or / -ur.[6] After the Norman conquest of England, the ending became -our to match the Old French spelling.[7] The -our ending was not only used in new English borrowings, but was also applied to the earlier borrowings that had used -or.[6] However, -or was still sometimes found,[8] and the first three folios of Shakespeare's plays used both spellings before they were standardised to -our in the Fourth Folio of 1685.[9] After the Renaissance, new borrowings from Latin were taken up with their original -or ending and many words once ending in -our (for example, chancellour and governour) went back to -or. Many words of the -our/or group do not have a Latin counterpart; for example, armo(u)r, behavio(u)r, harbo(u)r, neighbo(u)r; also arbo(u)r, meaning "shelter", though senses "tree" and "tool" are always arbor, a false cognate of the other word. Some 16th- and early 17th-century British scholars indeed insisted that -or be used for words from Latin (e.g. color)[8] and -our for French loans; but in many cases the etymology was not clear, and therefore some scholars advocated -or only and others -our only.[10]

Webster's 1828 dictionary had only -or and is given much of the credit for the adoption of this form in the United States. By contrast, Johnson's 1755 dictionary used -our for all words still so spelled in Britain (like colour), but also for words where the u has since been dropped: ambassadour, emperour, governour, perturbatour, inferiour, superiour; errour, horrour, mirrour, tenour, terrour, tremour. Johnson, unlike Webster, was not an advocate of spelling reform, but chose the spelling best derived, as he saw it, from among the variations in his sources. He preferred French over Latin spellings because, as he put it, "the French generally supplied us".[11] English speakers who moved to America took these preferences with them, and H. L. Mencken notes that "honor appears in the 1776 Declaration of Independence, but it seems to have got there rather by accident than by design. In Jefferson's original draft it is spelled honour."[12] In Britain, examples of color, flavor, behavior, harbor, and neighbor barely appear in Old Bailey court records from the 17th and 18th centuries, whereas there are thousands of examples of their -our counterparts.[13] One notable exception is honor. Honor and honour were equally frequent in Britain until the 17th century;[14] Honor still is, in the UK, the usual spelling as a person's name.

Derivatives and inflected forms


  • may be either dropped or kept, for example in colo(u)ration and colo(u)rize or colo(u)rise; or
  • may be kept, for example in colourist.[6]



American usage, in most cases, keeps the u in the word glamour, which comes from Scots, not Latin or French. Glamor is sometimes used in imitation of the spelling reform of other -our words to -or. Nevertheless, the adjective glamorous often drops the first "u". Saviour is a somewhat common variant of savior in the U.S. The British spelling is very common for honour (and favour) in the formal language of wedding invitations in the U.S.[15] The name of the Space Shuttle Endeavour has a u in it as the spacecraft was named after Captain James Cook's ship, HMS Endeavour. The special car on Amtrak's Coast Starlight train is known as the Pacific Parlour car, not Pacific Parlor. Similarly, names such as Pearl Harbor are spelled the same in Britain.

The name of the herb savory is thus spelled everywhere, although the related adjective savo(u)ry, like savo(u)r, has a u in the UK. Honor (the name) and arbor (the tool) have -or in Britain, as mentioned above. As a general noun, rigour or has a u in the UK; the medical term rigor (often or )[16] does not, such as in "rigor mortis", which is Latin. Derivations of "rigour/rigor" such as "rigorous", however, are typically spelled without a "u" even in the UK. Words with the ending -irior, -erior or similar are spelled thus everywhere.

Commonwealth usage



-re, -er

In British English, some words from French, Latin or Greek end with a consonant followed by -re, with the -re unstressed and pronounced /ə/ in non-rhotic dialects and /əɹ/ in rhotic dialects. In American English, most of these words have the ending -er.[19][20] The difference is most common for words ending -bre or -tre: British spellings calibre, wikt:centre, fibre, goitre, litre, lustre, manoeuvre, meagre, metre, mitre, nitre, ochre, reconnoitre, sabre, saltpetre, sepulchre, sombre, spectre, theatre (see exceptions) and titre all have -er in American spelling.

Most English words that today use -er were spelled -re at one time or another. In American English, almost all of these have become -er, while in British English only some of them have. The latter include chapter, December, disaster, enter, filter, letter, member, minister, monster, November, number, October, oyster, powder, proper, September, sober and tender. Words using the "-meter" suffix (from ancient Greek -μέτρον via post-Classical Latin meter) have normally had the er spelling from earliest use in English. Examples include thermometer and barometer.





The ending -cre, as in acre,[24] lucre, massacre, and mediocre, is used in both British and American English to show that the c is pronounced /k/ rather than /s/. The spellings ogre and euchre are also the same in both British and American English.

Theater is the prevailing American spelling used to refer to both the dramatic arts and buildings where stage performances and screenings of films take place (i.e. "movie theaters"); for example, a national newspaper such as The New York Times would use theater in its entertainment section. However, the spelling theatre appears in the names of many New York City theaters on Broadway[25] (cf. [26][27] The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington D.C. has the more common American spelling theater in its references to The Eisenhower Theater, part of the Kennedy Center.[28] Some cinemas outside New York also use the theatre spelling.[29] (Note also that the word "theater" in American English is a place where stage performances and screenings of films take place, but in British English a "theatre" is where stage performances take place but not film screenings - these take place in a cinema.)


For British accoutre, the American practice varies: the Merriam-Webster Dictionary prefers the -re spelling,[30] but The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language prefers the -er spelling.[31]

More recent French loanwords keep the -re spelling in American English. These are not exceptions when a French-style pronunciation is used (/rə/ rather than /ə/ or /ər/), as with double entendre, genre and oeuvre. However, the unstressed /ə/ and /ər/ pronunciation of an -er ending is used more (or less) often with some words, including cadre, macabre, maître d', Notre Dame, piastre, and timbre.

Commonwealth usage


-ce, -se

For advice / advise and device / devise, American English and British English both keep the noun/verb distinction (where the pronunciation is -[s] for the noun and -[z] for the verb). For licence / license or practice / practise, British English also keeps the noun/verb distinction (the two words in each pair are homophones with -[s] pronunciation, though). On the other hand, American English uses license and practice for both nouns and verbs (with -[s] pronunciation in both cases too).


Australian[33] and Canadian usage generally follows British.

-xion, -ction

The spelling connexion is now rare in everyday British usage, its use lessening as knowledge of Latin lessens,[34] and it is not used at all in the U.S.: the more common connection has become the standard worldwide. According to the Oxford English Dictionary the older spelling is more etymologically conservative, since the original Latin word had -xio-. The American usage comes from Webster, who abandoned -xion in favour of -ction by analogy with verbs like connect.[35] Connexion was still the house style of The Times of London until the 1980s and was still used by the British Post Office for its telephone services in the 1970s, but had by then been overtaken by connection in regular usage (for example, in more popular newspapers).

Complexion (which comes from complex) is standard worldwide and complection is rare.[36] However, the adjective complected (as in "dark-complected"), although sometimes objected to, is standard in the U.S. as an alternative to complexioned,[37] but is not used in this way in the UK, although there is a rare usage to mean complicated.[38]

Greek-derived spellings

-ise, -ize (-isation, -ization)

Origin and recommendations

According to the Oxford English Dictionary (OED), "The suffix...whatever the element to which it is added, is in its origin the Greek -ιζειν, Latin -izāre; and, as the pronunciation is also with z, there is no reason why in English the special French spelling in -iser should be followed, in opposition to that which is at once etymological and phonetic." The OED lists the -ise form separately, as "a frequent spelling of -IZE".[39] Noah Webster rejected -ise for the same reasons.[40] Two other well-known publications by Oxford University Press (OUP), Henry Watson Fowler's A Dictionary of Modern English Usage, and Hart's Rules,[41] also recommend -ize. Also, The Oxford Guide to English Usage states "-ize should be preferred to -ise as a verbal ending in words in which both are in use, according to Oxford University Press house style."[42] However, Robert Allan's Pocket Fowler's Modern English Usage considers either usage to be acceptable anywhere except the U.S.[43] Also, Oxford University itself does not agree with the OUP, but advocates "-ise" instead of "-ize" in its staff style guide.[44]


American spelling avoids -ise endings in words like [45]

British spelling mostly uses -ise, while -ize is also used ([45] the ratio between -ise and -ize stands at 3:2 in the British National Corpus.[46] The spelling -ise is more commonly used in UK mass media and newspapers,[45] including The Times, The Daily Telegraph and The Economist. Meanwhile, -ize is used in some British-based academic publications, such as Nature, the Biochemical Journal and The Times Literary Supplement. Perhaps as a reaction to the ascendancy of American spelling, the -ize spelling is often incorrectly seen in the UK as an Americanism. The dominant British English usage of -ise is preferred by Cambridge University Press.[43] The minority British English usage of -ize is known as Oxford spelling and is used in publications of the Oxford University Press, most notably the Oxford English Dictionary. It can be identified using the registered IANA language tag en-GB-oed.



Worldwide, -ize endings prevail in scientific writing and are commonly used by many international organizations, such as the European Union switched from -ize to -ise some years ago in its English language publications, meaning that -ize spellings are found in older legislative acts and -ise spellings in more recent ones. Proofreaders at the EU's Publications Office ensure consistent spelling in official publications such as the Official Journal (where legislation and other official documents are published), but the -ize spelling may be found in other documents.



  • One special case is the verb prise (meaning to force or lever), which is spelled prize in the U.S.[47] and prise everywhere else,[48] including Canada,[49] although in North American English it is almost always replaced by pry, a back-formation from or alteration of prise.[50]


-yse, -yze


Analyse seems to have been the more common spelling in 17th- and 18th-century English, but many of the great dictionaries of that time – John Kersey's of 1702, Nathan Bailey's of 1721 and Samuel Johnson's of 1755 – prefer analyze. In Canada, -yze prevails, just as in the U.S. In South Africa, Australia and New Zealand, -yse stands alone.



-ogue, -og

British and other Commonwealth English uses the ending -logue and -gogue while American English commonly uses the ending -log and -gog for words like analog(ue), catalog(ue), dialog(ue), monolog(ue), homolog(ue), etc. The -gue spelling, as in catalogue, is used in the U.S., but catalog is more common[53] (thus the inflected forms, cataloged and cataloging vs. catalogued and cataloguing). Analog is standard for the adjective, but both analogue and analog are current for the noun; in all other cases the -gue endings strongly prevail,[54] for example monologue, except for such expressions as dialog box in computing,[55] which are also used in the UK. In Australia, analog is used in its technical and electronic sense, as in analog electronics.[5] In Canada and New Zealand, analogue is used, but analog has some currency as a technical term[56] (e.g. in electronics, as in "analog electronics" as opposed to "digital electronics" and some video-game consoles might have an analog stick).



ae and oe


Words that can be spelled either way in American English include aesthetics and archaeology (which usually prevail over esthetics and archeology),[57] as well as palaestra, for which the simplified form palestra is described by Merriam-Webster as "chiefly Brit[ish]."[58]

Words that can be spelled either way in British English include encyclopaedia, homoeopathy, chamaeleon, mediaeval, foetid and foetus. The spellings foetus and foetal are Britishisms based on a mistaken etymology.[59] The etymologically correct original spelling fetus reflects the Latin original and is the standard spelling in medical journals worldwide,[60] though the Oxford English Dictionary comments that "In Latin manuscripts both fētus and foetus are used".[61]

(See also: the section "Ligatures [æ,œ]" in the article "English Orthography".)

The Ancient Greek diphthongs <αι> and <οι> were transliterated into Latin as and . The ligatures æ and œ were introduced when the sounds became monophthongs, and later applied to words not of Greek origin, in both Latin (for example, cœli) and French (for example, œuvre). In English, which has borrowed words from all three languages, it is now usual to replace Æ/æ with Ae/ae and Œ/œ with Oe/oe. In many cases, the digraph has been reduced to a lone e in all varieties of English: for example, oeconomics, praemium, and aenigma.[62] In others, it is kept in all varieties: for example, phoenix, and usually subpoena,[63] but Phenix in Virginia. This is especially true of names: Caesar, Oedipus, Phoebe, etc. There is no reduction of Latin -ae plurals (e.g. larvae); nor where the digraph / does not result from the Greek-style ligature: for example, maelstrom, toe. The British form aeroplane is an instance (compare other aero- words such as aerosol). The now chiefly North American airplane is not a respelling but a recoining, modelled after airship and aircraft. The word airplane dates from 1907,[64] at which time the prefix aero- was trisyllabic, often written aëro-.

Commonwealth usage

In Canada, e is usually preferred over oe and often over ae, but oe and ae are sometimes found in the academic and scientific writing as well as government publications (for example the fee schedule of the Ontario Health Insurance Plan). In Australia, encyclopedia and medieval are spelled with e rather than ae, as with American usage, and the Macquarie Dictionary also notes a growing tendency towards replacing ae and oe with e worldwide.[5] Elsewhere, the British usage prevails, but the spellings with just e are increasingly used.[65] Manoeuvre is the only spelling in Australia, and the most common one in Canada, where maneuver and manoeuver are also sometimes found.[66]

Doubled consonants

Doubled in British English

The final consonant of an English word is sometimes doubled in both American and British spelling when adding a suffix beginning with a vowel, for example strip/stripped, which prevents confusion with stripe/striped and shows the difference in pronunciation (see digraph). Generally, this happens only when the word's final syllable is stressed and when it also ends with a lone vowel followed by a lone consonant. In British English, however, a final -l is often doubled even when the final syllable is unstressed.[67] This exception is no longer usual in American English, seemingly because of Noah Webster.[68] The -ll- spellings are nevertheless still deemed acceptable variants by both Merriam-Webster Collegiate and American Heritage dictionaries.

  • For -ee, British English has libellee.
  • For -age, British English has pupillage but vassalage.
  • Canadian and Australian English mostly follow British usage.[67]

Among consonants other than l, practice varies for some words, such as where the final syllable has secondary stress or an unreduced vowel. In the United States, the spellings kidnaped and worshiped, which were introduced by the Chicago Tribune in the 1920s,[70] are common. Kidnapped and worshipped are the only standard British spellings.


  • British calliper or caliper; American caliper.
  • British jewellery; American jewelry. The word originates from the word jouel (an old French word).[71] The standard pronunciation [72] does not reflect this difference, however the non-standard pronunciation (which exists in New Zealand and Britain, hence the Cockney rhyming slang word tomfoolery ) does. According to Fowler, jewelry used to be the "rhetorical and poetic" spelling in the UK, and was still used by The Times into the mid-20th Century. Canada has both, but jewellery is more often used. Likewise, the Commonwealth (including Canada) has jeweller and the U.S. has jeweler for a jewel(le)ry seller.

Doubled in American English




Both the British fulfil and the American fulfill never use -ll- in the middle (i.e. fullfill or fullfil).[74][75]

Johnson wavered on this issue. His dictionary of 1755 lemmatizes distil and instill, downhil and uphill.[76]

Dropped e


  • British prefers ageing,[77] American usually aging (compare raging, ageism). For the noun or verb "route", British English often uses routeing,[78] but in America routing is used. The military term rout forms routing everywhere. However, all of these words form "router", whether used in the context of carpentry, data communications, or military. (e.g. "Attacus was the router of the Huns at ....")


  • Before -able, British English prefers likeable, liveable, rateable, saleable, sizeable, unshakeable,[80] where American practice prefers to drop the -e; but both British and American English prefer breathable, curable, datable, lovable, movable, notable, provable, quotable, scalable, solvable, usable,[80] and those where the root is polysyllabic, like believable or decidable. Both systems keep the silent e when it is needed to preserve a soft c, ch, or g, such as in traceable, cacheable, changeable; both usually keep the "e" after -dge, as in knowledgeable, unbridgeable, and unabridgeable ("These rights are unabridgeable").
  • Both abridgment and the more regular abridgement are current in the U.S., only the latter in the UK.[81] Likewise for the word lodg(e)ment. Both judgment and judgement are in use interchangeably everywhere, although the former prevails in the U.S. and the latter prevails in the UK[82] except in the practice of law, where judgment is standard. This also holds for abridgment and acknowledgment. Both systems prefer fledgling to fledgeling, but ridgeling to ridgling. Both acknowledgment, acknowledgement, abridgment and abridgement are used in Australia; the shorter forms are endorsed by the Australian Capital Territory Government.[5][83] The British spellings follow the grammatical rule that G can only be soft when preceding an E, I, or Y.

Past tense differences

In the UK, Ireland, Australia, New Zealand and Canada, it is more common to end some past tense verbs with a "t" as in learnt or dreamt rather than learned or dreamed.[84] However, such spellings are also found in North America.



Different spellings for different meanings

  • dependant or dependent (noun): British dictionaries distinguish between dependent (adjective) and dependant (noun). In the U.S., dependent is usual for both noun and adjective, regardless of dependant also being an acceptable variant for the noun form in the U.S.[85]
  • disc or disk: Traditionally, disc used to be British and disk American. Both spellings are etymologically sound (Greek diskos, Latin discus), although disk is earlier. In computing, disc is used for optical discs (e.g. a CD, Compact Disc; DVD, Digital Versatile/Video Disc), by choice of the group that coined and trademarked the name Compact Disc, while disk is used for products using magnetic storage (e.g. hard disks or floppy disks, also known as diskettes).[86] For this limited application, these spellings are used in both the U.S. and the Commonwealth. Solid-state devices also use the spelling "disk".
  • enquiry or inquiry:[87] According to Fowler, inquiry should be used in relation to a formal inquest, and enquiry to the act of questioning. Many (though not all) British writers maintain this distinction; the OED, in their entry dating from 1900, lists inquiry and enquiry as equal alternatives, in that order (with the addition of "public inquiry" in a 1993 addition). Some British dictionaries, such as Chambers 21st Century Dictionary,[88] present the two spellings as interchangeable variants in the general sense, but prefer inquiry for the "formal inquest" sense. In the U.S., only inquiry is commonly used; the title of the National Enquirer, as a proper name, is an exception. In Australia, inquiry and enquiry are often interchangeable.[89] Both are current in Canada, where enquiry is often associated with scholarly or intellectual research.
  • matt or matte: In the UK, matt refers to a non-glossy surface, and matte to the motion-picture technique; in the U.S., matte covers both.[92]
  • programme or program: The British programme is from post-classical Latin programma and French programme. Program first appeared in Scotland in 1633 (earlier than programme in England in 1671) and is the only spelling found in the U.S. The OED entry, updated in 2007, says that program conforms to the usual representation of the Greek as in anagram, diagram, telegram etc. In British English, program is the common spelling for computer programs, but for other meanings programme is used. New Zealand also follows this pattern. In Australia, program has been endorsed by government writing standards for all meanings since the 1960s,[93] and is listed as the official spelling in the Macquarie Dictionary;[5] see also the name of The Micallef P(r)ogram(me). In Canada, program prevails, and the Canadian Oxford Dictionary makes no meaning-based distinction between it and programme. However, some Canadian government documents nevertheless use programme for all meanings of the word – and also to match the spelling of the French equivalent.[93]
  • tonne or ton: In the UK, Australia, Canada, and New Zealand, the spelling tonne refers to the metric unit (1000 kilograms), whereas in the U.S. the same unit is called a metric ton. The unqualified ton usually refers to the long ton (2,240 pounds or 1,016 kilograms) in the UK and to the short ton (2,000 pounds or 907 kilograms) in the U.S. (but note that the tonne and long ton differ by only 1.6%, and are roughly interchangeable when accuracy is not critical; ton and tonne are usually pronounced the same in speech).


Different spellings for different pronunciations



{class="wikitable sortable"|- ! UK !! US !! class="unsortable" | Notes |- valign="top"

|| || , originally a French loanword with a different meaning, is the older spelling.[96] The oldest recorded uses of the spelling are British.[96] According to the OED,[97] " became the standard American term (replacing ) after this was adopted by the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics in 1916. Although A. Lloyd James recommended its adoption by the BBC in 1928, it has until recently been no more than an occasional form in British English." In the British National Corpus,[98] outnumbers by more than 7:1 in the UK. The case is similar for the British [99] and American ;[100] is used merely as a technical term in Australia, Canada and New Zealand. The prefixes aero- and air- both mean air, with the first coming from the Ancient Greek word ἀήρ (āēr). Thus, the prefix appears in aeronautics, aerostatics, aerodynamics, aeronautical engineering and so on, while the second occurs invariably in aircraft, airport, airliner, airmail etc. In Canada, is more common than , although is not unknown, especially in parts of French Canada (where it is, however, used only in English – the French term is avion, and the French word aéroplane designates 19th-century flying machines).[101]

|- valign="top" | || || The spelling is the international standard in the sciences according to the IUPAC recommendations. Humphry Davy, the element's discoverer, first proposed the name alumium, and then later aluminum. The name was finally adopted to conform with the -ium ending of metallic elements.[102] Canada uses and Australia and New Zealand , according to their respective dictionaries.[103] |- valign="top" | arse || ass || In vulgar senses "buttocks" ("anus"/"wretch"/"idiot"); unrelated sense "donkey" is ass in both. Arse is very rarely used in the U.S., though often understood. Whereas both are used in British English. |- valign="top" | || || The 19th century had the spelling pronounced to rhyme with move.[104] Subsequently, a pronunciation spelling was adopted in America, while in Britain a spelling pronunciation was adopted. |- valign="top" | bogeyman || boogeyman or boogerman || It is pronounced in the UK, so that the American form, boogeyman , is reminiscent of the 1970s disco dancing "boogie" to the British ear. Boogerman is common in the Southern U.S. and gives an association with the slang term booger for nasal mucus while the mainstream American spelling of boogeyman does not, but aligns more closely with the British meaning where a bogey is also nasal mucus. |- valign="top" | brent || brant || For the species of goose. |- valign="top" | carburettor || carburetor || ; . |- valign="top" | charivari || shivaree, charivari || In America, where both terms are mainly regional,[105] charivari is usually pronounced as shivaree, which is also found in Canada and Cornwall,[106] and is a corruption of the French word. |- valign="top" | coupé || coupe || For a two-door car; the horse-drawn carriage is coupé in both (meaning "cut"); unrelated "cup"/"bowl" is always coupe. |- valign="top" | eyrie || aerie || This noun (not to be confused with the adjective eerie) rhymes with weary and hairy respectively. Both spellings and pronunciations occur in America. |- valign="top" | fillet || fillet, filet || Meat or fish. Pronounced the French way (approximately) in the U.S.; Canada follows British pronunciation and distinguishes between fillet, especially as concerns fish, and filet, as concerns certain cuts of beef. McDonald's in the UK use the U.S. spelling "filet" for their Filet-O-Fish. |- valign="top" | furore || furor || Furore is a late 18th-century Italian loan-word that replaced the Latinate form in the UK in the following century,[107] and is usually pronounced with a voiced e. The Canadian usage is the same as the American, and Australia has both.[108] |- valign="top" | grotty || grody || Clippings of grotesque; both are slang terms from the 1960s.[109] |- valign="top" | haulier || hauler || Haulage contractor; haulier is the older spelling.[110] |- valign="top" | jemmy || jimmy || In the sense "crowbar". |- valign="top" | moustache || mustache
moustache || In America, according to the Merriam-Webster Collegiate Dictionary and The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, the British spelling is an also-ran, yet the pronunciation with second-syllable stress is a common variant. In Britain the second syllable is usually stressed. |- valign="top" | mum(my) || mom(my) || Mother. Mom is sporadically regionally found in the UK (e.g. in West Midlands English). Some British and Irish dialects have mam,[111] and this is often used in Northern English, Hiberno-English, and Welsh English. Scottish English may also use mam, ma, or maw. In the American region of New England, especially in the case of the Boston accent, the British pronunciation of mum is often retained, while it is still spelled mom. In Canada, there are both mom and mum; Canadians often say mum and write mom.[112] In Australia and New Zealand, mum is used. In the sense of a preserved corpse, mummy is always used. |- valign="top" | naivety,
naïveté || naïveté || The American spelling is from French, and American speakers generally approximate the French pronunciation as , whereas the British spelling is nativised, as also the pronunciation . In the UK, naïveté is a minor variant, used about 20% of the time in the British National Corpus; in America, naivete and naiveté are marginal variants, and naivety is almost unattested.[113][114] |- valign="top" | orientated || oriented || In the UK, Australia, and New Zealand, it is common to use orientated (as in family-orientated), whereas in the U.S., oriented is used exclusively (family-oriented). Both words have the same origins, coming from "orient" or its off-shoot "orientation".[115] |- valign="top" | pyjamas || pajamas || The 'y' represents the pronunciation of the original Urdu "pāy-jāma", and in the 18th century spellings such as "paijamahs" and "peijammahs" appeared: this is reflected in the pronunciation (with the first syllable rhyming with "pie") offered as an alternative in the first edition of the Oxford English Dictionary. Both "pyjamas" and "pajamas" are also known from the 18th century, but the latter became more or less confined to the U.S.[116] Canada follows both British and American usage, with both forms commonplace. |- valign="top" | pernickety || persnickety || Persnickety is a late 19th-century American alteration of the Scots word pernickety.[117] |- valign="top" | quin || quint || Abbreviations of quintuplet. |- valign="top" | scallywag || scalawag
scallywag || In the United States (where the word originated, as scalawag),[118] scallywag is not unknown.[119] |- valign="top" | sledge || sled || |- valign="top" | speciality || specialty || In British English the standard usage is speciality, but specialty occurs in the field of medicine,[120] and also as a legal term for a contract under seal. In Canada, specialty prevails. In Australia and New Zealand, both are current.[121] |- valign="top" | titbit || tidbit || According to the Oxford English Dictionary, the oldest form was "tyd bit", and the alteration to "titbit" was probably under the influence of the obsolete word "tit", meaning a small horse or girl. |- valign="top" | whilst || while || Penguin Working Words recommends while only, and notes that whilst is old-fashioned. The Cambridge Guide to English Usage and Merriam–Webster's Dictionary of English Usage comment on its regional character, and note that it is rare in American usage. It is thus safer to use only while in international English. (See the article While for further sources deprecating the use of whilst, and cautioning about uses of while.) |}

Miscellaneous spelling differences

UK US Remarks
annexe annex To annex is the verb in both British and American usage. However, the noun—an annex(e) of a building—the word is spelled with an -e at the end in the UK and Australia,[122] but not in the U.S. and New Zealand.[123]
artifact In British English, artefact is the main spelling and artifact a minor variant.[124] In American English, artifact is the usual spelling. Canadians prefer artifact and Australians artefact, according to their respective dictionaries.[125] Artefact reflects Arte-fact(um), the Latin source.[126]
axe ax,
Both the noun and verb. The word comes from Old English æx. In the U.S., both spellings are acceptable and commonly used. The Oxford English Dictionary states that "the spelling ax is better on every ground, of etymology, phonology, and analogy, than axe, which became prevalent in the 19th century; but it ["ax"] is now disused in Britain".[127] In the US "axe" is usually restricted to the weapon (battle axe).
camomile, chamomile chamomile, camomile The word derives, via French and Latin, from Greek χαμαίμηλον ("earth apple"). The more common British spelling "camomile", corresponding to the immediate French source, is the older in English, while the spelling "chamomile" more accurately corresponds to the ultimate Latin and Greek source.[128] In the UK, according to the OED, "the spelling cha- is chiefly in pharmacy, after Latin; that with ca- is literary and popular". In the U.S. chamomile dominates in all senses.
carat carat, karat The spelling with a "k" is used in the U.S. only for the measure of purity of gold. The "c" spelling is universal for weight.[126]
cheque check In banking. Hence pay cheque and paycheck. Accordingly, the North American term for what is known as a current account or cheque account in the UK is spelled chequing account in Canada and checking account in the U.S. Some American financial institutions, notably American Express, use cheque, but this is merely a trademarking affectation.
chequer checker As in chequerboard/checkerboard, chequered/checkered flag etc. In Canada as in the U.S.[129]
chilli chili,
The original Mexican Spanish word is chile.[129][130] In Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary, chile and chilli are given as also variants.
choir choir,
Quire (meaning "band of singers"), the earlier spelling,[131] was given as an alternative spelling by Webster (1828, 1844 and 1913) and Century Dictionary.[132] Choir emerged in the 17th century and is influenced by the Latin spelling.[133] Quire is also used in the UK to refer to the area in a cathedral occupied by the choir.[134]
cipher, cypher cipher
dyke dike The spelling with "i" is sometimes found in the UK, but the "y" spelling is rare in the U.S., where the y distinguishes dike in this sense from dyke, a slang term for a lesbian.
doughnut doughnut, donut In the U.S., both are used, with donut indicated as a variant of doughnut.[135]
draft /ˈdrɑːft/}}, General American ). The spelling draught reflects the older pronunciation, . Draft emerged in the 16th century to reflect the change in pronunciation.[138][139]
gauge gauge,
Both spellings have existed since Middle English.[141]
gauntlet gauntlet, gantlet When meaning "ordeal", in the phrase running the ga(u)ntlet, some American style guides prefer gantlet.[142] This spelling is unused in Britain[143] and less usual in America than gauntlet. The word is an alteration of earlier gantlope by folk etymology with gauntlet ("armored glove"), always spelled thus.
glycerine glycerin, glycerine Scientists use the term glycerol, but both spellings are used sporadically in the U.S.
grille grill,
In the U.S., "grille" refers to that of an automobile, whereas "grill" refers to a device used for heating food. However, it is not uncommon to see both spellings used in the automotive sense,[146] as well as in Australia[147] and New Zealand.[148]
hearken harken The word comes from hark. The spelling hearken was probably influenced by hear.[149]
idyll idyl, idyll Idyl was the spelling of the word preferred in the U.S. by the Merriam-Webster dictionary, for the same reason as the double consonant rule; idyll, the original form from Greek eidullion, is now generally used in both the UK and U.S.
jail '|dʒ|eɪ|l}}. The survival of the gaol spelling in British English is "due to statutory and official tradition".[150]
kerb curb For the noun designating the edge of a roadway (or the edge of a British pavement/ American sidewalk/ Australian footpath). Curb is the older spelling, and in the UK and U.S. it is still the proper spelling for the verb meaning restrain.[151]
(kilo)gramme}} (kilo)gram (Kilo)gramme is used sometimes in the UK[152] but never in the U.S. (Kilo)gram is the only spelling used by the International Bureau of Weights and Measures.
liquorice licorice The American spelling is nearer the Old French source licorece, which is ultimately from Greek glykyrrhiza.[153] The British spelling was influenced by the unrelated word liquor.[154] Licorice prevails in Canada and it is common in Australia, but it is rarely found in the UK. Liquorice is all but nonexistent in the U.S. ("Chiefly British", according to dictionaries).[155]
manoeuvre maneuver
midriff midriff, midrif[132][156]
mould mold date=April 2014}}
moult molt
neurone, neuron neuron
omelette omelet,
plough plow date=April 2014}}
smoulder smolder Both spellings go back to the 16th century, and have existed since Middle English.[126][169]
sulphate sulfate,
sulphur sulfur,
through through,
"Thru" is typically used in the U.S. as shorthand.
whisky (Scotland), whiskey (Ireland) whiskey, whisky In the United States, the whiskey spelling is dominant; whisky is encountered less frequently, but is used on the labels of some major brands (e.g., Maker's Mark, and Old Forester) and is used in the relevant U.S. federal regulations.[179] In Canada, whisky is dominant. Often the spelling is selected based on the origin of the product rather than the location of the intended readership, so it may be considered a faux pas to refer to "Scotch whiskey" or "Irish whisky".
ˈ|j|ɒ|ɡ|ə|t}} (or ) in the UK, (or ) in New Zealand, America, Ireland, and Australia. Depending on the speaker's accent, the pronunciation may be non-rhotic or rhotic and the sound may be pronounced . The word comes from the Turkish language word yoğurt.[181] The voiced velar fricative represented by ğ in the modern Turkish (Latinic) alphabet was traditionally written gh in romanizations of the Ottoman Turkish (Arabic) alphabet used before 1928.

Compounds and hyphens



Acronyms and abbreviations






See also



  • Chambers, J.K. (1998). "Canadian English: 250 Years in the Making", in The Canadian Oxford Dictionary, 2nd ed., p xi.
  • Clark, Joe (2009). Organizing Our Marvellous Neighbours: How to Feel Good About Canadian English (e-book, version 1.1). ISBN 978-0-9809525-0-6.
  • Fowler, Henry; Winchester, Simon (introduction) (2003 reprint). A Dictionary of Modern English Usage (Oxford Language Classics Series). Oxford Press. ISBN 0-19-860506-4.
  • Nicholson, Margaret; (1957). "A Dictionary of American-English Usage Based on Fowler's Modern English Usage". Signet, by arrangement with Oxford University Press.
  • Oxford English Dictionary, 20 vols. (1989) Oxford University Press.
  • Webster's Third New International Dictionary (1961; repr. 2002) Merriam-Webster, Inc.

External links

  • The Chicago Manual of Style
  • style guideThe Guardian
  • Word substitution list, by the Ubuntu English (United Kingdom) Translators team

