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This is a list of British English words that have different American English spellings, for example, colour (British English) and color (American English). Word pairs are listed with the British English version first, in italics, followed by the American English version: spelt, spelled; Derived words often, but not always, follow their root.
When the prefix "re-" is added to a monosyllabic word, the word gains currency both as a noun and as a verb. Most of the pairs listed below are closely related: for example, "absent" as a noun meaning "missing", and as a verb meaning "to make oneself missing". There are also many cases in which homographs are of an entirely separate origin, or ...
The words bow and bough are examples where there are two meanings associated with a single pronunciation and spelling (the weapon and the knot); two meanings with two different pronunciations (the knot and the act of bending at the waist), and two distinct meanings sharing the same sound but different spellings (bow, the act of bending at the ...
(have a butcher's) to have a look (rhyming slang: butcher's hook=look) to kill and cut up an animal for meat to kill messily, or someone who does so one who cuts and sells meat to make a big mess of things; botch ("butcher it up"; "I butchered the spelling") butchery (n.) slaughterhouse, abattoir a cruel massacre a butcher's trade a botch butt (n.)
Many of these words have the same origin, and similar meanings, and are essentially the same word. True heteronyms require the two words to be completely unrelated, which is a rare occurrence. For a longer list, see wikt:Category:English heteronyms.
The following is a handy reference for editors, listing various common spelling differences between national varieties of English. Please note: If you are not familiar with a spelling, please do some research before changing it – it may be your misunderstanding rather than a mistake, especially in the case of American and British English spelling differences.
In these cases, a given morpheme (i.e., a component of a word) has a fixed spelling even though it is pronounced differently in different words. An example is the past tense suffix- ed , which may be pronounced variously as /t/, /d/, or /ᵻd/ [a] (for example, pay / ˈ p eɪ /, payed / ˈ p eɪ d /, hate / ˈ h eɪ t /, hated / ˈ h eɪ t ɪ d /).
Double placenames prominently feature the placenames of two or more constituents in double-barrelled form rather than invent a new name. This is often out of consideration for local sensitivities, since the smaller entity may resent its takeover, and may demand its symbolic perpetuation within an amalgamated name so as to propagate the impression of a merger between equals.