Commonly Misspelled Words

There are a great number of rules that apply to the correct spelling of words in American English. There are also a great number of words whose spelling does not conform to the rules. It is not surprising that correct spelling is difficult for many students.

Here are some of the words that are most commonly misspelled. For each word there is the most common misspelling of the word. You may find that you use some of these misspellings in your writing. For each word there is also a clue that will help you spell the work correctly.

Word	Common Misspelling	Clue
acquire	aquire	Don’t forget the c after the first letter.
argument	arguement	There is no e after the u.
basically	basicly	Ends with ally.
bizarre	bizzare	There is only one z, but a double r.
committee	commitee	There are 3 double letters; m, t, e.
definitely	definately	It is ite, not ate.
familiar	familar	It ends with iar not ar.
forty	fourty	There is no u here.
forward	foward	Don’t forget that first r.
friend	freind	Put the i before the e.
gist	jist	It begins with a g, not a j.
government	goverment	There is a n before the m.
grammar	grammer	Ends with ar, not er.
inoculate	innoculate	There is only one n here.
interrupt	interupt	Remember to double that r.
knowledge	knowlege	Don’t forget the d.
liaison	liason	Remember there is an iboth before and after the a.
occasion	occassion	There is a double c, but just one s.
occurrence	occurence	There is a double c and a double r.
pavilion	pavillion	No, there is no double l here.
persistent	persistant	That’s ent, not ant at the end.
possession	posession	There are a whole bunch of s’s, four to be exact.
sense	sence	It ends with se, not ce.
separate	seperate	Remember there is par in the middle, not per.
supersede	supercede	That’s a s after super, not a c.
surprise	surprize	There is a s before the last letter, not a z.
threshold	threshhold	There is only one h in the middle.
truly	truely	There is no e here.
unforeseen	unforseen	Don’t forget the e after for.
which	wich	Remember to put an h after the w.

This list is just a sample of the many words that are commonly misspelled. When you find yourself misspelling a word, come up with a clue to help you remember the correct spelling of the word.

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