spelling: frequently misspelled words

The following is a list of words that are often misspelled. The letters that are usually the object of the errors – through inversion, omission, doubling, addition or substitution – are in boldface:

  • abhor
  • abysmal
  • accommodate
  • acquaintance
  • aggressive
  • all right
  • anomalous
  • appellant
  • arctic
  • argument
  • attorney
  • awkward
  • battalion
  • calendar
  • canister
  • Caribbean
  • cartilage
  • census
  • Chile (the country)
  • chlorophyll
  • coherent, coherence
  • Colombia (the country)
  • commitment
  • comparative
  • concomitant
  • connection
  • consensus
  • consistent, consistency
  • corollary
  • correspondence
  • crystallographic
  • Dene (no accents in English)
  • descend
  • desiccate
  • develop
  • diarrhea
  • diphtheria
  • disappoint
  • discernible
  • domain (not domaine)
  • dysentery
  • ecstasy
  • embarrass
  • exaggerate
  • excerpt
  • exhilarate
  • existent, existence
  • exonerate
  • exorbitant (not exhorbitant)
  • Filipino
  • focus
  • foreseen
  • gauge
  • genealogy
  • grammar
  • guerrilla
  • harass
  • hemorrhage
  • hereditary
  • histogram
  • honorary
  • hypocrisy
  • hypothesis
  • independent, independence
  • indispensable
  • infinitesimal
  • inoculate
  • inscribe
  • insistent, insistence
  • Inuit
  • Inuk
  • iridescent
  • irrelevant
  • laboratory
  • liaison
  • lightning
  • liquefy
  • marshal
  • measure
  • medicine
  • memento
  • Métis
  • minuscule
  • Mississippi
  • misspell
  • moccasin
  • Morocco
  • naphtha
  • negotiation
  • nickel
  • occasional
  • occurrence
  • ophthalmology
  • paraffin
  • parallel
  • pastime
  • perinatal
  • permissible
  • Philippines
  • polyethylene
  • polystyrene
  • polyurethane
  • possession
  • precede
  • preferential
  • privilege
  • proceed
  • pronunciation
  • ptomaine
  • quadriplegia
  • rarefy
  • recede
  • recommendation
  • reminiscent
  • resistant, resistance
  • responsible
  • rheumatism
  • rhythm
  • sacrilegious
  • separate
  • siege
  • soybean
  • spatial
  • stochastic
  • supersede
  • tariff
  • tendency
  • thorough
  • threshold
  • until
  • weird
  • withhold
  • written

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© His Majesty the King in Right of Canada, represented by the Minister of Public Services and Procurement
A tool created and made available online by the Translation Bureau, Public Services and Procurement Canada

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