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American and British English spelling differences are one aspect of American and British English differences. In the early 18th century, English spelling was not standardised. Different standards became noticeable after the publishing of influential dictionaries. Current British English spellings follow, for the most part, those of Samuel Johnson's Dictionary of the English Language (1755). Many of the now characteristic American English spellings were introduced, although often not created, by Noah Webster (An American Dictionary of the English Language (1828)).

Webster was a strong proponent of spelling reform for reasons both philological and nationalistic. Many spelling changes proposed in the U.S. by Webster himself, and in the early 20th century by the Simplified Spelling Board, never caught on. Among the advocates of spelling reform in England, the influences of those who preferred the Norman (or Anglo-French) spellings of certain words proved decisive. Subsequent spelling adjustments in Britain had little effect on present-day U.S. spelling, and vice versa. While in many cases American English deviated in the 19th century from mainstream British spelling, on the other hand it has also often retained older forms.

The spelling systems of Commonwealth countries closely resemble the British system. In Canada, many "American" spellings are also used, often alongside "British" spellings. Detailed information on Canadian and Australian spelling is provided throughout the article.

Contents 1 Spelling and pronunciation 2 Latin-derived spellings 2.1 -our / -or 2.2 -re / -er 2.3 -ce / -se 2.4 -xion / -ction 3 Greek-derived spellings 3.1 -ise / -ize 3.2 -ogue / -og 3.3 Simplification of ae (æ) and oe (œ) 4 Compounds and hyphens 5 Doubled consonants 5.1 Doubled in British English 5.2 Doubled in American English 6 Dropped e 7 Different spellings, different connotations 8 Acronyms and abbreviations 9 Miscellaneous spelling differences 10 See also 11 References 12 Notes

Spelling and pronunciation

In a few cases, essentially the same word has a different spelling which reflects a different pronunciation. Commonwealth as Britain except where noted.

Britain	U.S.	Remarks
aluminium	aluminum	Aluminium is the international standard in the sciences (IUPAC). The American spelling is nonetheless used by many American scientists. The original name proposed for the element was "alumium", with the name "aluminum" being suggested later. The name "aluminium" was finally adopted to conform with the -ium ending of many elements. [1] Canada as U.S.
arse	ass	In vulgar senses "buttocks" ("anus"/"wretch"); unrelated sense "donkey" is ass in both. Both forms are found in Canada and Australia.
barmy	balmy	In sense "slightly insane", "crazy", "foolish"[2]; the term has limited currency in American English. Both forms originated in 19th century England from older senses (barmy: "frothing"; balmy: "warm and soft") whose spellings do not vary.
behove	behoove	Canada has both. British form is more etymologically correct (Old English behōfian → Middle English behove(n)).
carburettor	carburetor	The British pronunciation stresses the third syllable; the American stresses the first. Canada as U.S.
charivari	shivaree, charivari	In the U.S., where both terms are mainly regional[3], charivari is however pronounced usually as shivaree, which is also found in Canada and Cornwall[4], and is a corruption of the French word.
coupé	coupe	for a 2-door car; the horse-drawn carriage is coupé in both; unrelated "cup"/"bowl" is always coupe. In the U.S., the E is accented when used as a foreign word[citation needed].
fillet	fillet, filet	Meat or fish. Pronounced as in French in the U.S. if spelled filet (more common). Canada as U.S.
furore	furor	Furore is a late 18th-century Italian loan that replaced the Latinate form in Britain in the following century[5], and is usually pronounced with a voiced e. Canada as U.S. Australia has both.
haulier	hauler	Haulage contractor; haulier is the older spelling[6]. In Canada, hauler prevails.
maths	math	Abbreviations of mathematics. Canada as U.S. and an increasing use of math in some Australian states due to U.S. influences[citation needed], although maths still prevails in Australia. New Zealand uses maths.
moustache	mustache	In the U.S., according to the Merriam-Webster Collegiate Dictionary and the American Heritage Dictionary, the British spelling is an also-ran, but the second-syllable stress pronunciation is a common variant.
mum(my)	mom(my)	Mother. Mom is sporadically regionally found in Britain (West Midlands English); some British dialects have mam[7], and this is often used in Irish English. Canada has both. In the U.S. region of New England, especially in the case of the Boston accent, the British pronunciation of mum is often retained, while it is still spelt mom.
pernickety	persnickety	Persnickety is a late 19th-century North American alteration of the Scottish word pernickety[8].
quin	quint	Abbreviations of quintuplet.
scallywag	scalawag	In the U.S. (where the word originated, as scalawag) scallywag is not unknown. By and large, Canada as U.S. and Australia as UK[9].
snigger	snicker	According to major dictionaries, both forms can occur in both dialects, although snigger can cause offense in the U.S. due to the similarity to nigger. In Canada snigger can have malicious connotations; in Australia snigger prevails, as in the UK[10].
speciality	specialty	In British English the standard usage is speciality, but specialty occurs in the field of medicine,[11] and also as a legal term for a contract under seal. In Canada, specialty prevails; in Australia both are current[12].
titbit	tidbit	Canada as U.S.

Latin-derived spellings

 

-our / -or

Most words ending in unstressed -our in Britain (e.g. colour, flavour, honour) end in -or in the U.S. (e.g. color, flavor, honor). Most words of this category derive from Latin non-agent nouns having nominative -or; the first such borrowings into English were from early Old French and the ending was -or or -ur^[13]. After the Norman Conquest, the termination became -our in Anglo-French in an attempt to represent the Old French pronunciation of words ending in -or^[14]. The -our ending was not only retained in English borrowings from Anglo-French, but also applied to earlier French borrowings^[15]. After the Renaissance, some such borrowings from Latin were taken up with their original -or termination; many words once ending in -our (for example, chancellour and governour) now end in -or everywhere. Many words of the -our/-or group do not have a Latin counterpart; for example, armo(u)r, behavio(u)r, harbo(u)r, neighbo(u)r; also arbo(u)r in sense "bower"; senses "tree" and "tool" are always arbor, a false cognate of the other word. Some 16th and early 17th century British scholars indeed insisted that -or be used for words of Latin origin and -our for French loans; but in many cases the etymology was not completely clear, and therefore some scholars advocated -or only and others -our only^[16].

As early as 1755 Dr Johnson settled on -our, while Webster's 1828 dictionary featured only -or and is generally given much of the credit for the adoption of this form in the U.S. By contrast, Johnson, unlike Webster, was not an advocate of spelling reform and for the most part simply recorded what he found. For example, documents [2] from the Old Bailey, the foremost court in London, support the view of the OED that by the 17th century "colour" was the settled spelling. Those English speakers who began to move across the Atlantic would have taken these habits with them and H L Mencken makes the point that, "honor appears in the Declaration of Independence, but it seems to have got there rather by accident than by design. In Jefferson’s original draft it is spelled honour. " [3] Examples such as color, flavor, behavior, harbor, or neighbor scarcely appear in the Old Bailey's court records from the 17th and 18th century, whereas examples of their -our counterparts are generally numbered in hundreds. One notable exception is honor: honor and honour were equally frequent down to the 17th century^[17], and Honor still is in Britain the normal spelling for a person's name.

Derivatives and inflected forms. In derivatives and inflected forms of the -our/or words, in British usage the u is kept before English suffixes that are freely attachable to English words (neighbourhood, humourless, savoury) and suffixes of Greek or Latin origin that have been naturalised (favourite, honourable, behaviourism); before Latin suffixes that are not freely attachable to English words, the u can be dropped (honorific, honorist, vigorous, humorous, laborious, invigorate), can be either dropped or retained (colo(u)ration, colo(u)rise), or can be retained (colourist)^[18]. In American usage, derivatives and inflected forms are built by simply adding the suffix in all environments (favorite, savory, etc.) since the u is absent to begin with.

Exceptions. American usage most often retains the u in the word glamour, which comes from Scots, not Latin or French; saviour is a common variant of savior in the U.S.; the name of the herb savory is thus spelled everywhere (although the probably related adjective savo(u) ry does have a u in Britain).

Commonwealth usage. Commonwealth countries normally follow British usage. In Canada -or endings are not uncommon, particularly in the Prairie Provinces, though they are rarer in Eastern Canada^[19]. In Australia, -or terminations enjoyed some use in the 19th century, and now are sporadically found in some regions^[20], usually in local and regional newspapers, though -our is almost universal.

 

-re / -er

In British usage, some words of French, Latin, or Greek origin end with a consonant followed by -re, with the -re unstressed and pronounced [ə(ɹ)]. Most of these words have the ending -er in the U.S. This is especially true of endings -bre and -tre: fibre/fiber, sabre/saber, centre/center (though some places in the United States have "Centre" in their names, named both before and after spelling reform, and there are very occasional uses of "Center" in England [4]), spectre/specter (though spectre is acceptable in the U.S.).

Theater is the prevailing American spelling and is used by America's national theater as well as major American newspapers such as the New York Times (theater section) to refer to both the dramatic arts as well as to buildings where performances take place; yet theatre is also current, witness Broadway and The New Yorker.

Macabre is an exception, perhaps because in the U.S., the word is regarded as French, and is even pronounced as a French word, if the final syllable is pronounced at all. The ending -cre is retained in the U.S.: acre, massacre, and so on; this prevents the c losing its hard k sound (however it should be noted that acre was spelled æcer in Old English and aker in Middle English, compare Icelandic akr, Gothic Aker(s), Old High German Ackar, German Acker, Latin ager.)

There are not many other -re endings, even in British English: louvre, manoeuvre, meagre, ochre, ogre, sepulchre, and euchre. In the U.S., ogre and euchre are standard, manoeuvre and sepulchre are usually maneuver and sepulcher, and the other -re forms listed are variants of the equivalent -er form.

Of course the above relates to root words; -er rather than -re is universal as a suffix for agentive (reader, winner) and comparative (louder, nicer) forms. One consequence is the British distinction of meter for a measuring instrument from metre for the unit of measurement. However, while poetic metre is often -re, pentameter, hexameter, etc. are always -er.

The e preceding the r is retained in U.S. derived forms of nouns and verbs, for example, fibers, reconnoitered, centering, which are, naturally, fibres, reconnoitred and centring respectively in British usage. It is dropped for other inflections, for example, central, fibrous, spectral. However such dropping cannot be regarded as proof of an -re British spelling: for example, entry derives from enter, which is never spelled entre.

Commonwealth usage^[21]. The -re endings are standard throughout the Commonwealth. The -er spellings are recognised, as minor variants, only in Canada.

 

-ce / -se

Nouns ending in -ce with -se verb forms: American English and British English both retain the noun/verb distinction in advice / advise and device / devise, but American English has lost the same distinction with licence / license and practice / practise that British spelling retains. American English uses practice and license for both meanings. Also, American English has kept the Anglo-French spelling for defense and offense, which are usually defence and offence in British English; similarly there are the American pretense and British pretence; but derivatives such as defensive, offensive, pretension, pretentious are always thus spelled in both systems.

Commonwealth usage. Canadian English generally follows British usage for licence/license^{[citation needed]}, defence, offence and practice^{[citation needed]}; both pretence^{[citation needed]} and pretense are found. Rest of the Commonwealth as UK.

 

-xion / -ction

The spellings connexion, inflexion, deflexion, reflexion are now somewhat rare in everyday British usage, but are not known at all in the U.S: the more common connection, inflection, deflection, reflection have almost become the standard internationally. However, the Oxford English Dictionary lists the older spellings as the etymologically correct form, since these four words actually derive from the Latin root -xio.

Connexion has found preference again amongst recent British government initiatives such as Connexions (the national careers and training scheme for school early leavers). Until the early 1980s, The Times of London also used connexion as part of its house style.^[22] It is still used in legal texts and British Methodism retains the eighteenth century spelling connexion to describe its national organisation, for historical reasons.

In both forms, complexion (which comes from the stem complex) is standard and complection is not. However, the adjective complected (as in "dark complected"), although sometimes objected to, can be used as an alternative to complexioned in the U.S.[5], but is quite unknown in Britain. (Note, however, that crucifiction is simply an error in either form of English; crucifixion is the correct spelling.)

Greek-derived spellings

 

-ise / -ize

American spelling accepts only -ize endings in most cases, such as organize, recognize, and realize. British usage accepts both -ize and the more French-looking -ise (organise, recognise, realise). However, the -ize spelling is now rarely used in the UK in the mass media and newspapers, and is hence often incorrectly regarded as an Americanism,^[23] despite being preferred by some authoritative British sources, including Fowler's Modern English Usage and the Oxford English Dictionary, which until recently did not list the -ise form of many individual words, even as an alternative. Indeed, it firmly deprecates this usage, stating, "The suffix, whatever the element to which it is added, is in its origin the Greek... (or) Latin -izare; and, as the pronunciation is also with z, there is no reason why in English the special French spelling in -iser should be followed, in opposition to that which is at once etymological and phonetic."^[24] Noah Webster rejected -ise for the same reasons.^[25]

But the OED might be fighting a losing battle. The -ise form is used by the British government and is more prevalent in common usage within the UK today; the ratio between -ise and -ize stands at 3:2 in the British National Corpus^[26]. The OED spelling (which can be indicated by the registered IANA language tag en-GB-oed), and thus -ize, is used in many British-based academic publications, such as Nature, the Biochemical Journal and The Times Literary Supplement. In Australia and New Zealand -ise spellings strongly prevail; the Australian Macquarie Dictionary, among other sources, gives the -ise spelling first. Conversely, Canadian usage is essentially like American, although -ise is occasionally found in Canada. Worldwide, -ize endings prevail in scientific writing and are commonly used by many international organizations.

The same pattern applies to derivatives and inflections such as colonisation/colonization.

Endings in -yze are now found only in the U.S. and Canada. Thus, Commonwealth (including sometimes Canada) analyse, catalyse, hydrolyse, paralyse; North American analyze, catalyze, hydrolyze, paralyze. It is worth noting, however, that analyse was commonly spelled analyze from the first — a spelling also accepted by Samuel Johnson; the word, which came probably from French analyser, on Greek analogy would have been analysize, from French analysiser, from which analyser was formed by haplology^[27].

Note that not all spellings are interchangeable; some verbs take the -z- form exclusively, for instance capsize, seize (except in the legal phrase to be seised of/to stand seised to), size and prize (only in the "appraise" sense), whereas others take only -s-: advertise, advise, apprise, arise, chastise, circumcise, comprise, compromise, demise, despise, devise, disguise, excise, exercise, franchise, improvise, incise, merchandise, revise, supervise, surmise, surprise, and televise. Finally, the verb prise (meaning to force or lever) is spelled prize in the U.S. and prise everywhere else, including Canada^[28], although in North American English pry (a back-formation from or alteration of prise) is often used in its place^[29].

 

-ogue / -og

Some words of Greek origin, a few of which derive from Greek λόγος, can end either in -ogue or in -og: analog(ue), catalog(ue), dialog(ue), demagog(ue), pedagog(ue), monolog(ue), homolog(ue), etc. In Britain (and generally in the Commonwealth), the -ogue endings are the standard. In the U.S., catalog has a slight edge over catalogue^[30] (note the inflected forms, cataloged and cataloging vs. catalogued and cataloguing); analog is standard for the adjective, but both analogue and analog are current for the noun; in all other cases the -gue endings strongly prevail^[31], except for such expressions as dialog box in computing, which are also used in Britain. Finally, in Canada and Australia as well as the U.S. analog has currency as a technical term^[32] (e.g. in electronics, as in "analog computer" and many video game consoles might have an analog stick).

Simplification of ae (æ) and oe (œ)

Many words are written with ae or oe in British English, but a single e in American English. The sound in question is [i] or [ɛ] (or unstressed [ə]). Examples (with non-American letter in bold): anaemia, anaesthesia, caesium, diarrhoea, gynaecology, haemophilia, leukaemia, oesophagus, oestrogen, orthopaedic, paediatric. Words where British usage varies include encyclopaedia, foetus (though the British medical community deems this variant unacceptable for the purposes of journal articles and the like, since the Latin spelling is actually fetus), homoeopathy, mediaeval. In American usage, aesthetics and archaeology prevail over esthetics and archeology^[33], while oenology is a minor variant of enology.

The Ancient Greek diphthongs <αι> and <οι> were transliterated into Latin as <ae> and <oe>. The ligatures æ and œ were introduced when the sounds became monophthongs, and later applied to words not of Greek origin, in both Latin (for example, cœli) and French (for example, œuvre). In English, which has imported words from all three languages, it is now usual to replace Æ/æ with Ae/ae and Œ/œ with Oe/oe. In many cases, the digraph has been reduced to a single e in all varieties of English: for example, oeconomics, praemium, and aenigma^[34]. In others, especially names, it is retained in all varieties: for example, phoenix, Caesar, Oedipus. There is no reduction of Latin -ae plurals (e.g. larvae); nor where the digraph <ae>/<oe> does not result from the Greek-style ligature: for example, maelstrom, toe. British aeroplane is an instance (compare other aero- words such as aerosol). The now chiefly North American airplane is not a respelling but a recoining, modelled on airship and aircraft. Airplane dates from 1907^[35], at which time aero- was trisyllabic, often written aëro-.

Commonwealth usage. The spellings with just e are generally preferred in Canada and increasingly used in Australia^[36].

Internationally, the American spelling is closer to the way most languages spell such words; for instance, almost all Romance languages (which tend to have more phonemic spelling) lack the ae and oe spellings (a notable exception is French), as do Swedish, Polish, and others, while Dutch uses them ("ae" is rare and "oe" is the normal representation of the sound IPA: [u] (while written "u" represents either the sound y or ʏ in IPA)). Danish and Norwegian retain the original ligatures. German, through umlauts, retains its equivalent of the ligature, for when written without the umlaut, words resemble the British usage (i.e. ä becomes ae and ö becomes oe).

Compounds and hyphens

British English often prefers hyphenated compounds, such as counter-attack, whereas American English discourages the use of hyphens in compounds where there is no compelling reason, so counterattack is much more common. Many dictionaries do not point out such differences. Canadian and Australian usage is mixed, although Commonwealth writers generally hyphenate compounds of the form noun plus phrase (such as editor-in-chief)^[37].

Doubled consonants

Doubled in British English

The final consonant of an English word is sometimes doubled when adding a suffix beginning with a vowel. Generally this occurs only when the word's final syllable ends with a single vowel followed by a single consonant, and the syllable is stressed; but in BrE, a final -l is often doubled even when the final syllable is unstressed.^[38] This exception is no longer usual in AmE, apparently due to Noah Webster^[39]. The -ll- spellings are nonetheless still regarded as acceptable variants by both Merriam-Webster Collegiate and American Heritage dictionaries.

• The BrE doubling is required for all inflections and for the suffixes -er, -or. Therefore, British modelling, quarrelled, cruellest, traveller, counsellor; American usually modeling, quarreled, cruelest, traveler, counselor.
  • parallel keeps a single -l- (paralleling, unparalleled) to avoid a cluster -llell-.
  • Words with two vowels before l are covered where the first either acts as a consonant (Br equalling, initialled; US usually equaling, initialed) or belongs to a separate syllable (Br fu•el•ling, di•alled; US usually fu•el•ing di•aled)
    • But British woollen is a further exception (US woolen); also, wooly is accepted in America though woolly dominates in both^[40].
• Endings -ize/-ise, -ism, -ist, -ish usually do not double the l in British English: normalise, dualism, novelist, devilish
  • Exceptions: duellist, medallist, panellist, sometimes triallist; tranquillise
• For -ous, BrE has a single l in scandalous and perilous, but two in marvellous and libellous. For -ee, BrE has libellee.
• American English has unstressed -ll-, as in Britain, in some words where the root has -l. These are cases where the alteration occurs in the source language, often Latin. (Examples: bimetallism, cancellation, chancellor, crystallize, excellent, tonsillitis)
• But both dialects have compelled, excelling, propelled, rebelling (notice the stress difference); revealing, fooling (double vowel before the l); hurling (consonant before the l).
• Canadian and Australian English largely follow British usage^[41].

Among consonants other than l, practise varies for some words, such as where the final syllable has secondary stress or an unreduced vowel. In the U.S., the spellings kidnaped and worshiped, introduced by the Chicago Tribune in the 1920s,^[42] are common alongside kidnapped and worshipped, the only standard British spellings.

Miscellaneous:

• British calliper or caliper; American caliper.
• British jewellery; American jewelry. According to Fowler, jewelry used to be the "rhetorical and poetic" spelling in Britain. Canada has both. Likewise, Commonwealth (including Canada) has jeweller and U.S. has jeweler for a jewel(le)ry retailer.

 

Doubled in American English

Conversely, there are words where British writers prefer a single l and Americans usually use a double l. These include wil(l)ful, skil(l)ful, thral(l)dom, extol(l), dispel(l), appal(l), fulfil(l), fulfil(l)ment, enrol(l)ment, instal(l)ment. In Britain ll is used occasionally in distil(l), instil(l), enrol(l) and enthral(l)ment, and often in enthral(l). Former spellings instal, fulness, and dulness are now rare.^[43] The Scottish tolbooth is cognate with toll booth but has a specific distinct sense.

The preceding words have monosyllabic cognates always written with -ll: will, skill, thrall, toll, spell, pall, fill, roll, stall, still. Comparable cases where a single l occurs in American English include null→annul, annulment, till→until; all→almighty, altogether, etc.; full→useful, helpful, etc; chill→chilblain; well→welfare,welcome; and others where the connection is less transparent.

Dropped e

British English sometimes keeps silent e when adding suffixes where American English does not. British usually ageing^[44], sometimes routeing^[45]; American usually aging, routing (compare raging, ageism). Both systems retain the silent e when necessary to preserve a soft c or g, as in traceable, and in the word dyeing, to distinguish it from dying. Both abridgment and the more regular abridgement are current in the U.S., only the latter in the UK.^[46] Both judgement and judgment can be found everywhere, although the latter strongly prevails in the U.S. and the former prevails in Britain ^[47] except in law, where judgment is standard.

Different spellings, different connotations

• artefact or artifact: British usage is mixed, but some speakers claim to write artefact to mean “a product of artisanry” but artifact when the meaning is “a flaw in experimental results caused by the experiment itself”^{[citation needed]}. In American English, artifact is the usual spelling, although^{[citation needed]} it is regarded as nonstandard by some U.S. authorities. Canadians prefer artifact and Australians artefact, according to their respective dictionaries^[48].

• disc or disk: traditionally, disc used to be British and disk American. Both spellings are etymologically sound (Greek diskos, Latin discus), although disk is earlier. In the U.S., disc is used for optical discs (e.g. a CD (Compact Disc), DVD (Digital Versatile/Video Disc)) while disk is used for everything else (e.g. floppy disk and hard disk). In computing (among other fields), both spellings are used in both the U.S. and the Commonwealth — the two spellings are generally used mutually exclusively to refer to discs of different types.^{[dubious — see talk page]}

• ensure or insure: in Britain (and Australia), the word ensure (to make sure, to make certain) has a distinct meaning from the word insure (often followed by against – to guarantee or protect against, typically by means of an "insurance policy"). The distinction is only about a century old^[49], and this helps explain why in (North) America ensure is just a variant of insure more often than not.

• programme or program: the British programme is a 19th-century French version of program, which first appeared in Scotland in the 17th century and is the only spelling found in the U.S. The OED entry, written around 1908 and listing both spellings, said program was preferable, since it conformed to the usual representation of the Greek as in anagram, diagram, telegram etc. In British English, program is the common spelling for computer programs, but for other meanings programme is used. In Australia, program has been endorsed by government style for all senses since the 1960s^[50], although programme is also common; see also the name of The Micallef Program(me). In Canada, program prevails, and the Canadian Oxford Dictionary makes no meaning-based distinction between it and programme; many Canadian government documents use programme in all senses of the word also to match the spelling of the French equivalent^[51].

Compare also meter, for which an older English written distinction between etymologically related forms with different meanings once existed, but was obviated in the regularisation of American spellings.

Acronyms and abbreviations

Proper names formed as acronyms are often rendered in title case by Commonwealth writers, but usually as upper case by Americans: for example, Nasa / NASA or Unicef / UNICEF. This never applies to certain initialisms, such as USA or HTML.

Contractions, where the final letter is present, are often written in British English without stops/periods (Mr, Mrs, Dr, St). Abbreviations where the final letter is not present generally do take stops/periods (such as vol., etc., ed.). In American English, abbreviations like St., Mr., Mrs., and Dr. always require stops/periods.

Miscellaneous spelling differences

Throughout the following table, Canadian and Australian spelling is the same as British except where noted.

Britain	U.S.	Remarks
annexe	annex	To annex is the verb in both Commonwealth and American usage; however, when speaking of an annex(e) (the noun referring to an extension of a main building, not military conquest, which would be annexation), it is usually spelt with an -e at the end in the Commonwealth (except Canada), but in the U.S. it is not.
any more	anymore	In sense "any longer", the single-word form is usual in North America and Australia but unusual in Britain, at least in formal writing.[52] Other senses always have the two-word form; thus Americans distinguish "I couldn't love you anymore [so I left you]" from "I couldn't love you any more [than I already do]".
axe	ax	Both noun and verb; axe used also in the U.S. The American form is more etymologically correct (they come from Old English æx)
camomile, chamomile	chamomile, camomile	In Britain, according to the OED, "the spelling cha- is chiefly in pharmacy, after Latin; that with ca- is literary and popular". In the U.S. chamomile dominates in all senses. In Canada chamomile seems to prevail.
cheque	check	For a bank cheque. Hence pay cheque and paycheck. Accordingly, the North American term for what is elsewhere known as a current account or cheque account is spelled chequing account in Canada and checking account in the U.S. Some U.S. financial institutions, notably American Express, prefer cheque.
chequer	checker	As in chequerboard/checkerboard, chequered/checkered flag, etc. Canada as U.S.[53]
cosy	cozy	In all senses (adjective, noun, verb). In Canada cozy prevails.
cipher, cypher	cipher	Both spellings are quite old.
draught	draft	The UK uses draught for dispensing drinks (draught beer), for animals used for pulling heavy loads ("a draught horse"), for a current of air, for a ship's minimum depth of water to float, and for the game draughts (known as checkers in the U.S.); it uses draft for a plan or sketch, for the preliminary version of a document and for the verb meaning to write it, for an order of payment, and for military conscription (although this last meaning is not as common as in American English). The U.S. uses draft in all these cases (except in regard to drinks, where draught is sometimes found). Canada uses both systems; in Australia, draft is used for technical drawings, is accepted for the "current of air" meaning, and is preferred by professionals in the nautical sense[54]. The pronunciation is always the same for all meanings within a dialect (RP /drɑ:ft/, General American /dræft/). The spelling draught is older; draft appeared first in the late 16th century.[55]
glycerine	glycerin, glycerine	Scientists use the term glycerol.
jail, gaol	jail	Jail prevails everywhere, although gaol is still an official spelling in New Zealand and Australia; in Britain, gaol and gaoler are used, apart from literary usage, chiefly to describe a mediaeval building and guard.
grey	gray	Grey became the established British spelling in the 20th century, pace Dr. Johnson and others[56], and is but a minor variant in American English, according to dictionaries. Canadians tend to prefer grey. Some American writers[citation needed] tend to assign wistful, positive connotations to grey, as in "a grey fog hung over the skyline", whereas gray often carries connotations of drabness, "a gray, gloomy day."
kerb	curb	For the noun designating the edge of a roadway (or the edge of a (UK) pavement/(U.S.) sidewalk/(Australia) footpath). Curb is the older spelling, and in the U.K. and in the U.S. is still the proper spelling for the verb meaning restrain.[57] Canada as U.S.
liquorice	licorice	Licorice, foregrounded by Canadian and Australian dictionaries, is rarely found in the UK; liquorice, which is a folk etymology, is all but nonexistent in the U.S. ("chiefly British", according to dictionaries).[58]
mollusc	mollusk, mollusc	The related adjective is normally molluscan in both.
mould	mold	In all senses of the word. In Canada both have wide currency. [59]
moult	molt	In Canada both have wide currency.[citation needed]
neurone, neuron	neuron	Neuron prevails[citation needed] in Canada and Australia; both are common in Britain.
pyjamas	pajamas	Pronounced /-'dʒɑːməz/ in the UK, /-'dʒɑməz/ or /-'dʒæməz/ in the U.S. Canada has both[60].
plough	plow	Both date back to Middle English; the OED records several dozen variants. In Britain, plough has been the standard spelling for about three centuries[61]. Although plow was Webster's pick, plough continued to have currency in the U.S., as the entry in Webster's Third (1961) implies; newer dictionaries label plough "chiefly British". Canada has both[62].
sceptic (-al, -ism)	skeptic (-al, -ism)	The American spelling, akin to Greek, preferred by Fowler, and used by many Canadians, is the earlier form[63]. Sceptic also pre-dates the settlement of the U.S. and follows the French sceptique and Latin scepticus. In the mid-18th century Dr Johnson's dictionary listed skeptic without comment or alternative but this form has never been popular in Britain[64]; sceptic, an equal variant in Webster's Third (1961), has now become "chiefly British". Australians generally follow British usage. All are pronounced with a hard "c", though in French the letter is effectively silent and so confusible with septique.
storey	story	Level of a building. Note also the differing plural, storeys vs stories respectively.
sulphur	sulfur	Sulfur is the international standard in the sciences (IUPAC). Sulphur was preferred by Johnson, is used by many British scientists and is still actively taught in British schools, prevails in Canada and Australia, and is also found in some American place names (e.g., Sulphur Springs, Texas and Sulphur, Louisiana).
tyre	tire	Wheel rubber part. Canada as U.S. Tire is the older spelling, but both were used in the 15th and 16th centuries (for a metal tire); tire became the settled spelling in the 17th century but tyre was revived in Britain in the 19th century for pneumatic tyres, possibly because it was used in some patent documents[65], though many continued to use tire for the iron variety. The Times newspaper was still using tire as late as 1905.
vice	vise	The two-jaw tool. Americans (and Canadians) retain a medieval distinction between vise (the tool) and vice (the sin and the Latin prefix meaning "deputy"), both of which are vice in Britain (and Australia).[66]
yoghurt, yogurt	yogurt	Yoghurt is an also-ran in the U.S., as yoghourt is in Britain. Although Oxford Dictionaries have always preferred yogurt, in current British usage yoghurt seems to be preferred. In Canada yogurt prevails, despite the Canadian Oxford prefering yogourt[67]. Australia as Britain. Whatever the spelling, the word has different pronunciations in Britain /jɒ-/ (or /jəʊ-/) and the U.S. /joʊ-/. Australia as U.S. with regards to pronunciation.

See also

• American and British English differences
• List of British words not widely used in the United States
• List of American words not widely used in the United Kingdom
• List of words having different meanings in British and American English
• American and British English pronunciation differences
• The Chicago Manual of Style

References

• Peters, Pam (2004). The Cambridge Guide to English Usage. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-521-62181-X. 

• Oxford English Dictionary, 20 vols. (1989) Oxford University Press.
• Webster's Third New International Dictionary (1961; repr. 2002) Merriam-Webster, Inc.
• Burchfield, R. W. (Editor); Fowler, H. W. (1996). The New Fowler's Modern English Usage. Clarendon Press. ISBN 0-19-869126-2
• Fowler, Henry; Winchester, Simon (introduction) (2003 reprint). A Dictionary of Modern English Usage (Oxford Language Classics Series). Oxford Press. ISBN 0-19-860506-4.
• Hargraves, Orin (2003). Mighty Fine Words and Smashing Expressions. Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-515704-4
• Nicholson, Margaret; (1957). "A Dictionary of American-English Usage Based on Fowler's Modern English Usage". Signet, by arrangement with Oxford University Press.

• The Chicago Manual of Style
• Hart's Rules
• The Guardian style guide

Notes