Spelling List
In addition to the words listed and discussed in the preceding pages, other words often cause spelling problems. Following is a list of frequently misspelled words. If you are at all weak in spelling, you should test yourself on these words, as well as those discussed earlier. But you should also keep your own spelling list: whenever you misspell a word, add it to your list, and try to decide which rule the error violates or which category of error it falls into. Write only the correct spelling of the word: never write a misspelled word—even deliberately—when making your list, since this may reinforce the incorrect spelling in your mind when your goal should be to forget it. If a word continues to give you trouble, it can help to concentrate not on the rules that govern its spelling but on how the word looks, by taking a mental “photo” of it. Practise spelling the words on your list until you have mastered them.
| absence | absorption | accessible |
| acclaim | accumulate | acknowledgement |
| acquaintance | acquire | additional |
| advertise | adviser (or advisor) | aesthetic (or esthetic) |
| affection | affadavit | aging |
| allege | alternately | always |
| amateur | amour | analogy |
| analyze (or analyse) | anonymous | anticipated |
| apartment | appall (orappal) | approach |
| architect | arctic | arithmetic |
| article | atmosphere | audience |
| automatically | auxiliary | axe (or ax) |
| background | beggar | beneficent |
| benefit | botany | bullet |
| buoyant | bureau | burglar |
| buried | cafeteria | calendar |
| Calvinist | camaraderie | candidate |
| cannibal | captain | careful |
| carnival | cartilage | catalogue |
| category | chagrin | challenge |
| champion | changeable | chocolate |
| cinnamon | clamour (or clamor) | clothed |
| coincide | colossal | committee |
| complexion | comprise | comrade |
| concomitant | conqueror | conscious |
| consensus | conservative | consider |
| consumer | continuing | control |
| controlled | convenient | court |
| courteous | create | criticize (or criticise) |
| curiosity | cylinder | decorative |
| decrepit | defence (or defense) | defensive |
| delusion | desperate | devastation |
| develop | diameter | dilemma |
| diminution | dining | diphtheria |
| dispatch | dissatisfied | dissipate |
| divide | doctor | drunkenness |
| eclectic | ecstasy | efficient |
| elegiac | eligible | emancipation |
| ambarrassment | emphasize (or emphasise) | employee |
| emulate | encompass | encyclopedia |
| endeavour (or endeavor) | enforced | engraver |
| enterprise | epilogue | equip |
| equipment | equipped | erupt |
| euphonious | exaggerate | exalt |
| excel | exercise | exhausted |
| exhilarating | exorbitant | exuberant |
| facilities | fallacy | fascination |
| feasible | fervour (or fervor) | filter |
| flippant | flourish | flyer (or flier) |
| focuses (or focusses) | foreign | foresee |
| forty | fulfill | fundamentally |
| furor | gaiety | gauge |
| genealogy | gleam | goddess |
| grammar | grey (or gray) | grievous |
| guarantee | guard | harass |
| harmonious | height | heinous |
| heroin | heroine | hesitancy |
| hindrance | homogeneous | horseshoe |
| household | humorous | hygienist |
| hypocrisy | hypocrite | illegal |
| illegitimate | illiterate | imagery |
| imagination | imitate | immediate |
| impious | implementation | importance |
| imposter | improvise | inadequacy |
| incidentally | incompatible | indefinite |
| industrialization | inevitable | influence |
| initiative | injuries | innocent |
| inoculate | inquire (or enquire) | integrated |
| interrupt | intimate | intriguing |
| jealousy | jeweller (or jeweler) | jewellery (or jewelry) |
| judgment (or judgement) | knowledge | knowledgeable |
| laboratory | leeches | liaison |
| library | licence (or license) (n.) | license (or licence) (v.) |
| lieutenant | likelihood | lineage |
| liquefy | liqueur | liquor |
| luxury | magnificent | mammoth |
| manoeuvre (or maneuver) | manual | manufactured |
| marriage | marshal | mattress |
| meant | medieval | melancholy |
| menace | metaphor | mineralogy |
| minuscule | mischievous | misspelling |
| molester | monologue | monotonous |
| mould (or mold) | moustache (or mustache) | museum |
| naive, naïveté | necessary | ninety |
| nostrils | nosy (or nosey) | numerous |
| obstacle | occasion | occurred |
| occurrence | offence (or offense) | omniscient |
| oneself | operator | opulent |
| ostracize (or ostracise) | paralleled (or parallelled) | paralyze (or paralyse) |
| paraphernalia | parliament | partner |
| peculiar | peddler | perfectible |
| perseverance | personality | personify |
| personnel | persuade | pharaoh |
| phony (or phoney) | plagiarism | playwright |
| plough (or plow) | poem | pollution |
| porous | positioning | possession |
| practicality | practice (n.) | practise (v.) |
| predecessors | prejudice | prestige |
| pretense (or pretence) | primitive | procedure |
| proletariat | prominent | proscenium |
| psychiatry | psychology | pursue |
| putrefy | puzzled | quandary |
| quantity | quatrain | quizzically |
| rarefied | reality | recognize |
| recommend | reflection | registration |
| reminisce | repel | repetition |
| restaurant | rhythm | ridiculous |
| sacrifice | safety | scandal |
| sentence | separate | sheik |
| shepherd | sheriff | shining |
| shiny | signifies | simile |
| simultaneous | sincerity | siphon (or syphon) |
| skeptic (or sceptic) | skiing | skilful (or skillful) |
| smoulder (or smolder) | solely | soliloquy |
| species | spectators | speech |
| sponsor | storey (or story) (floor) | straddle |
| strategy | stretched | styrofoam |
| subconsciously | subsequent | subtly |
| superintendent | susceptible | suspense |
| symbolic | symbolize (or symbolise) | symmetry |
| synonymous | syrup | tariff |
| temperament | temperature | territory |
| theory | therein | threshold |
| tragedy | trailed | tranquility (or tranquillity) |
| transferred | troubadour | tyranny |
| unavailing | undoubtedly | unmistakable |
| until | usefulness | vehicle |
| veterinarian | weary | whisky (or whiskey) |
| wilful (or willful) | wintry | wistfulness |
| withdrawal | writing | written |