English is full of words that trip up even confident writers. Some are everyday words with sneaky double letters or silent consonants, while others are borrowed from foreign languages and follow no predictable pattern at all. Below you’ll find the words that cause the most trouble, organized by what makes them difficult, along with memory tricks to help you get them right.
Everyday Words That People Misspell Constantly
These aren’t obscure vocabulary words. They show up in emails, essays, and text messages all the time, and they catch people off guard because the correct spelling just doesn’t look right. Here are some of the most frequently misspelled words in English:
- accommodate (not “accomodate”): It needs both a double c and a double m.
- definitely (not “definately”): The root word is “definite,” with an i, not an a.
- separate (not “seperate”): There’s a rat hiding in “separate.”
- necessary (not “neccessary” or “necessery”): One c, two s’s.
- occurrence (not “occurence”): Double c, double r, then “ence.”
- consensus (not “concensus”): No c after the n.
- embarrass (not “embarass”): Double r, double s.
- cemetery (not “cemetary”): All three vowels are e’s.
- misspell (not “mispell”): Ironically, one of the most misspelled words. It keeps both s’s because it’s “mis” plus “spell.”
- tomorrow (not “tommorrow”): One m, two r’s.
- vacuum (not “vaccum” or “vaccuum”): One c, two u’s.
- broccoli (not “brocolli”): Double c, one l.
- zucchini (not “zuchinni”): Double c, one n.
- absence (not “absense”): Ends in “ence,” not “ense.”
- plagiarize (not “plagarize”): The i after the g is easy to forget.
Why English Spelling Is So Unpredictable
English is essentially three languages stacked on top of each other. It inherited vocabulary from Latin, French, and Germanic languages, and in many cases it kept the spelling from one source while adopting the pronunciation from another. The word “judge,” for example, traces its spelling to the Latin “judicare” but uses a French pronunciation. “Friend” merged two Germanic forms, “freond” and “friund,” keeping one version’s pronunciation and a hybrid of both spellings. The result is a language where sounding a word out often leads you astray.
Silent Letters That Make Spelling Harder
Silent letters are one of the biggest reasons English words are hard to spell. If you can’t hear a letter, you’re unlikely to remember it’s there. These patterns show up over and over:
Silent k before n: knife, knight, knuckle, know, knot. The k was once pronounced in Old English but dropped out of speech centuries ago while the spelling stayed frozen.
Silent g before n: gnaw, gnat, gnome, gnarl. Same story as silent k. You pronounce only the n.
Silent b after m: climb, limb, dumb, comb, crumb. Your mouth naturally drops the b sound after m, but the letter remains on the page.
Silent p in Greek-origin words: psychology, pneumonia, pterodactyl, psalm. English borrowed these from Greek, where the p was pronounced. We kept the spelling but simplified the sound.
Silent h in Latin and French words: honest, hour, heir, honor. These entered English through French, which doesn’t pronounce the initial h.
Double Consonants: The Guessing Game
One of the hardest spelling decisions is whether a word has a single or double consonant. English gives you almost no reliable rule for this. “Committee” has double m, double t, and double e. “Accommodate” has double c and double m. But “recommend” has only one c. “Broccoli” doubles the c but not the l, while “zucchini” also doubles the c but not the n.
The frustration is that these words don’t sound any different whether they have one consonant or two. You simply have to memorize which letters are doubled. That’s why words like “occurrence,” “committee,” “embarrass,” and “accommodate” land on every list of hard-to-spell words.
Words That Sound Nothing Like They Look
Some words are hard because the gap between pronunciation and spelling is enormous. These are the words where sounding it out actually works against you:
- rhythm: No traditional vowels at all. Just r-h-y-t-h-m.
- colonel: Pronounced “kernel.” The spelling comes from Italian “colonnello,” but the pronunciation follows French.
- conscience: The “sci” in the middle sounds like “sh,” not like “science.”
- liaison: Three vowels in a row (i-a-i), borrowed directly from French.
- receipt: The p is completely silent.
- Wednesday: Nobody pronounces the first d, but it’s always there.
- February: That first r after “Feb” disappears in most people’s speech.
British vs. American Spelling Differences
If you read or write across international contexts, spelling gets even trickier because British and American English handle hundreds of words differently. Neither version is wrong, but mixing them in the same document will make your writing look inconsistent. Here are the major patterns:
- -our vs. -or: colour/color, favour/favor, neighbour/neighbor
- -re vs. -er: centre/center, theatre/theater, fibre/fiber
- -ise vs. -ize: organise/organize, maximise/maximize, analyse/analyze
- -ll vs. -l: traveller/traveler, labelled/labeled, modelling/modeling
- -ogue vs. -og: catalogue/catalog, dialogue/dialog
- -ement vs. -ment: judgement/judgment, acknowledgement/acknowledgment
Some individual words split in less predictable ways too. British English uses “grey,” “cheque,” “aluminium,” and “sceptical,” while American English uses “gray,” “check,” “aluminum,” and “skeptical.” Past tenses also differ: British writers tend toward “learnt,” “burnt,” and “dreamt,” while American writers use “learned,” “burned,” and “dreamed.”
Spelling Bee Words: The Hardest of the Hard
For a sense of how extreme English spelling difficulty can get, look at the winning words from the Scripps National Spelling Bee. These are words that eliminated every other competitor in the country. Recent winners include “abseil” (2024), “psammophile” (2023), “moorhen” (2022), and “murraya” (2021). In 2019, the competition was so fierce it ended in an eight-way tie, with winning words like “erysipelas,” “bougainvillea,” “pendeloque,” and “aiguillette.” The 2016 bee ended in a tie with “gesellschaft” and “Feldenkrais.” These words come from German, French, Latin, Greek, and Arabic roots, and their spellings follow the rules of those source languages rather than any English pattern.
Mnemonics That Actually Help
The most reliable way to remember tricky spellings is to anchor them to a phrase or mental image. Here are proven mnemonics for some of the hardest everyday words:
- rhythm: Rhythm Helps Your Two Hips Move.
- necessary: Remember the cesspool in the middle (one c, two s’s).
- accommodate: This word can accommodate a double c and a double m.
- separate: There’s a rat in separate.
- cemetery: All the vowels are e’s. “Eileen found herself at e’s in the cemetery.”
- island: An island is land surrounded by water.
- dilemma: Emma faced a dilemma.
- piece: Have a piece of pie.
- argument: Gumbo lost an e in an argument (argue drops the e).
- misspell: Miss Pell never misspells.
These aren’t elegant, but that’s the point. The sillier and more specific the image, the more likely you are to recall it when you’re staring at a word and second-guessing yourself. For words without a good mnemonic, writing the correct spelling by hand several times is one of the fastest ways to lock it into memory. Your hand learns the pattern even when your brain hesitates.