The 201 Most Commonly Misspelled Words in English

With a little practice, you can improve your spelling.
Begin by reviewing the following list of 201 of the most commonly misspelled words in English.

by Richard Nordqvist for ThoughtCo • Updated March 09, 2017
The adjective excellent already appears in our list of 201 Commonly Misspelled Words. Now you might want to add the noun excellence. (Janet Fekete/Getty Images)

Then pick out those words that tend to give you problems, and make up a series of short sentences in which you use these troublesome words—spelled correctly, of course..
Finally, you can test your ability to spell these words at our Spelling Review Exercises and our Quiz on 25 Commonly Misspelled Words.

COMMONLY MISSPELLED WORDS

absence accommodate achieve acquire across	address advertise advice among apparent	argument athlete awful balance basically
becoming before beginning believe benefit	breathe brilliant business calendar careful	category ceiling cemetery certain chief
citizen coming competition convenience criticize	decide definite deposit describe desperate	develop difference dilemma disappear disappoint
discipline does during easily eight	either embarrass environment equipped exaggerate	excellent except exercise existence expect
experience experiment explanation familiar fascinating	finally foreign forty forward friend	fundamental generally government grammar guarantee
guidance happiness heroes humorous identity	imaginary imitation immediately incidentally independent	intelligent interesting interfere interpretation interruption
invitation irrelevant irritable island jealous	judgment knowledge laboratory length lesson	library license loneliness losing lying
marriage mathematics medicine miniature minute	mysterious naturally necessary neighbor neither	noticeable occasion occurred official often
omission operate optimism original ought	paid parallel particularly peculiar perceive	perform permanent persevere personally persuade
picture piece planning pleasant political	possess possible practical prefer prejudice	presence privilege probably professional promise
proof psychology quantity quarter quiet	quit quite realize receive recognize	recommend reference religious repetition restaurant
rhythm ridiculous sacrifice safety scissors	secretary separate shining similar sincerely	soldier speech stopping strength studying
succeed successful surely surprise temperature temporary through	through toward tries truly twelfth until unusual	using usually village weird welcome whether writing