 Common variant spellings
Not counting the many compound words that are variously written as one word, two words, or hyphenated, there is a sizable group of words with two recognized spelling variants.
Which one should you use? Either is fine — that's the whole point. Some I pick because one variant better reflects my pronunciation than the other (like dispatch instead of despatch). Some I pick because I just find them easier to read (like eyeing, jail, and kidnapped).
But if you want to know which variant is the more popular, just pop the word into a search engine like Google.
| Variant 1 |
Variant 2 |
| backward, forward, toward |
backwards, forwards, towards |
| despatch |
dispatch |
| donut |
doughnut |
| -ed burned, kneeled, learned, spelled |
-t burnt, knelt, learnt, spelt |
| enrol |
enroll |
| enthral |
enthrall |
| extendable, extendability |
extendible, extendibility |
| eyeing |
eying |
| flier |
flyer |
| focused, focusing |
focussed, focussing |
| fulfil |
fulfill |
| gaol |
jail |
| gray |
grey |
| -ise (eg, organise), -isation , -ising¹ |
-ize (eg, organize), -ization , -izing¹ |
| kidnaped, kidnaper, kidnaping |
kidnapped, kidnapper, kidnapping |
| rhyme |
rime |
| whiskey² |
whisky² |
| worshiped, worshiper, worshiping |
worshipped, worshipper, worshipping |
¹ These variants are commonly mistaken to be British (s) and American (z) variants. However, while the 'z' spellings are standard American English, both are used in British English. There are also many such words that only ever use 's' (such as advertise, comprise, devise) and one that only ever use 'z' (capsize).
² Typically, it is Irish whiskey and Canadian and Scotch whisky.
 Misspelled words
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