25 Commonly Misspelled Words (and Memory Tricks to Get Them Right)
English spelling is famously inconsistent, and even confident writers have a few words they always have to double-check. The good news is that most common misspellings come from a small group of words, and a quick memory trick fixes each one for good. Here are 25 of the most frequently misspelled words in English, with a trick for each.
Word
Memory trick
ACCOMMODATE
Two Cs and two Ms: it is big enough to accommodate both.
NECESSARY
One collar and two sleeves: one C, two Ss.
SEPARATE
There is "a rat" in separate.
DEFINITELY
It contains the word "finite". No A anywhere.
EMBARRASS
Two Rs and two Ss, just as you go Really Red and Smile Shyly.
RHYTHM
Rhythm Helps Your Two Hips Move.
BELIEVE
Never believe a lie: the LIE is inside beLIEve.
RECEIVE
I before E except after C: rec-E-I-ve.
WEIRD
A famous exception to "I before E", which is weird.
FOREIGN
Another exception: E before I.
CONSCIENCE
CON plus SCIENCE.
GOVERNMENT
It comes from GOVERN, so keep the N.
ARGUMENT
Drop the E from argue: ARGUMENT, not arguement.
OCCURRED
Double C, double R.
CALENDAR
Ends in -DAR, not -DER.
CEMETERY
Three Es, and no A.
PRIVILEGE
No D, and it ends in -LEGE.
TOMORROW
One M, two Rs.
UNTIL
One L at the end, though "till" has two.
HARASS
One R, two Ss, unlike embarrass.
MILLENNIUM
Two Ls and two Ns.
LIAISON
An I on each side of the A.
SUPERSEDE
The only common word ending in -SEDE.
NOTICEABLE
Keep the E from notice before -ABLE, so the C stays soft.
MISCHIEVOUS
Three syllables: MIS-CHIE-VOUS. No extra I before -OUS.
Why these words are tricky
Double letters are the biggest cause of mistakes: accommodate, embarrass, millennium and occurred all have two pairs.
Silent or unstressed letters trip people up, as in the second E of cemetery, or the I in definitely, which sounds like an A.
Exceptions to the rules catch everyone. I before E except after C works for receive and believe, but not for weird or foreign.
Words borrowed from other languages, such as liaison from French, keep spellings that do not follow English patterns.
A note on British and American spelling
Every word in this list is spelled the same in British and American English. Some other differences, such as colour and color or travelled and traveled, are not mistakes at all. See our guide to British and American spelling for those.
How to make spellings stick
Pick the words you personally get wrong. Nobody needs to learn all 25; choose your three or four.
Say the trick out loud the first few times you write the word.
Write the word correctly a few times in a sentence of your own.
Play word games. Unscrambling and crossword puzzles train you to notice exact spellings. Our daily puzzle is a quick daily habit.
We'd like to use analytics cookies to see which puzzles people enjoy and to fix things that don't work.
They stay off unless you say yes. Read our cookie policy.
