Misspelling
Spelling a word incorrectly. Misspelling is distinguished from other errors in writing, such as grammatical errors, incorrect capitalization or misuse of punctuation. A misspelled word can be a series of letters that represents no correctly-spelt word at all (such as "liek" for "like") or a correct spelling of another word (such as writing "here" when one means "hear", or "now" when one means "know"). Misspellings of the latter type can easily make their way into printed material, because they cannot be caught by computerized spell-checkers.
Some common misspellings
MISSPELLING CORRECT SPELLING
abberration aberration acheive achieve adress address alterior ulterior athiest atheist befor before beleive believe Caucasion Caucasian committment commitment (but committed, committing, committee) concensus consensus concieve conceive Dalmation Dalmatian decaffinated decaffeinated decathalon decathlon definately definitely diety deity (error promulgated by an early Unix spell-checker) diptheria diphtheria dispell dispel ecx., exc. etc. embarass embarrass enviroment environment expresso espresso extremly extremely facist fascist Febuary February flourescent fluorescent flouride fluoride fourty forty freind friend geneology genealogy geuss guess goverment government grammer grammar hampster hamster harrass harass hieght, heigth height hunderd hundred hygeine hygiene hypocracy hypocrisy libary library masterbate masturbate millenium millennium mischievious mischievous mispell misspell mit mitt monkies monkeys (except for the rock group, who are the Monkees) neice niece nickle nickel nineth ninth ninty ninety occurence occurrence oppurtunity opportunity opthamologist ophthalmologist paralell parallel pasttime pastime peice piece percieve perceive persue pursue pertend pretend Pharoah Pharaoh Pokeman Pokémon potatoe potato pronounciation pronunciation publically publicly (the one exception to the -ically rule) rasberry raspberry recieve receive reccomend recommend rythm rhythm (but eurythmics) seige siege seperate separate sherbert sherbet sieze seize similiar similar sincerly sincerely stagitory statutory suggestable suggestible supercede supersede suprise surprise thier their tommorrow tomorrow tounge tongue triathalon triathlon ukelele ukulele vaccuum vacuum villian villain Wendesday Wednesday wierd weird writting writing
Some commonly confused homonyms
accept: tolerate
except: everything but
add: put together with
ad: short for "advertisement"
allowed: permitted
aloud: audibly
allot: to distribute
a lot: much; many (a lot of)
bridal: pertaining to a bride (bridal gown, bridal suite)
bridle: around a horse's neck and head
chord: group of musical notes; anything that can be "struck" (It struck a sensitive chord)
cord: rope; long electrical line; vertebral column
cored: having the inside cut out, like an apple
dyeing: artificially coloring
dying: passing away
effect: ramification: cause and effect; sound effect (as a noun); bring about (effect change) (as a verb)
affect: have an effect on; pretentiously display (affect a British accent) (always a verb)
faze: to temporarily stop or shock (It didn't even faze them)
phase: a stage through which one goes
here: this place (opposed to there)
hear: sense with the ears
hoard: accumulate and store up as much of something as one can
horde: large group of warriors, mob
its: belonging to it (analogous to my, your, his, her, our, their)
it's: contraction for "it is" (analogous to I'm, you're, he's, she's, we're, they're) or "it has" (analogous to I've, you've, he's, she's, we've, they've)
llama: camelid mammal
lama: priest (The Dalai Lama)
lead: pronounced to rhyme with "seed", to guide or serve as the head of
lead: pronounced to rhyme with "head", a heavy metal
led: the past tense of "lead"
mantle: one of the layers of the Earth; a cloak (by metaphorical extension, special position held)
mantel: over the fireplace
metal: shiny, malleable element or alloy like silver, gold, iron, zinc, tin, copper, bronze or brass
medal: an award to be strung around the neck
meddle: stick one's nose into others' affairs
mettle: toughness, guts
muscle: one of the parts of the body used to move
mussel: a bivalve popular as seafood
past: time before now (past, present and future); beyond; after the hour (three past nine = 9:03); former (in her past life)
passed: past tense of "pass"
piece: portion
peace: opposite of war (peace of mind)
peak: tip, height, to reach its highest point
peek: to take a brief look, usually through a thin aperture (sneak peek)
pique: fit of anger; to incite (pique one's interest)
poor: impoverished; also, to be pitied (Poor Peter!)
pore: a hole in the skin; to go over with great focus (pore over)
pour: to run out (said of liquid); to rain heavily
rack: a long, open container with a rectangular frame (spice rack); one's upper body
wrack: overwork (wrack one's brains)
rain: water falling from the sky
reign: to rule; hold the position as monarch
rein: the strip used to control a horse; anything that restrains; to restrain anything by pulling in its irrational exuberance (pull the reins in on)
reek: to stink
wreak: to bring about (wreak havoc)
rest: sit down without doing anything active; the remainder
wrest: to struggle to extricate something (wrest it out of his hands)
retch: puke
wretch: person in a miserable condition
right: the direction opposite to left; correct; something a person must have his/her choice to do respected (the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness); straight or directly (went right to his heart)
write: to put down in letters; send a letter to (Write me soon!)
rite: ritual, ceremony (rites of passage)
wright: connected with other words to mean someone who constructs (playwright, scenewright, wheelwright)
ring: piece of jewelry; make a sound like a bell or telephone, or tinnitus in the ears; anything shaped like a circle or torus (like the rings in a bathtub); sound familiarly like (that rings of fascism)
wring: strangle (wring his neck)
seem: appear to
seam: a line of stitches that holds two pieces together
sight: vision
site: place, grounds; place in cyberspace
cite: quote or make a reference to; write a ticket
some: a few
sum: what you get when you add numbers; short for summarize (sum up)
soul: spirit; mellow African-American music style
sole: single and only; the surface of the bottom of the foot; flat fish like flounder, petrale or halibut
Seoul: the capital of South Korea
Sol: the solar system we live in
tear: rip; run extremely fast, jolt, bolt, dart
tare: dry measure of grains; payment in wheat
their: belonging to them
there: that place (opposed to here); also used to start sentences that denote indication of the existence of something (There is a casserole in the fridge; There were many problems with her To Kill a Mockingbird essay; There are no anarchists in the White House)
they're: contraction for "they are"
to: towards or headed for; in order to; used before the infinitive of verbs
too: also; excessively
two: the number 2
waste: to use up for something pointless; sewage (toxic waste)
waist: the line that goes across the middle of your body
weather: the meteorological conditions; to survive some wear and tear
whether: if something is so or not
wether: a male sheep (The bellwether was the ram who led the herd, and carried a bell around his neck to signal the front of the herd coming.)
whose: belonging to whom
who's: contraction for "who is" or "who has"
your: belonging to you (analogous to my, his, her, its, our, their)
you're: contraction for "you are" (analogous to I'm, he's, she's, it's, we're, they're)
And here are some other groups of words for which people commonly write one for the other.
are: plural of is (I am, he/she is, you are, we are, they are)
our: belonging to us
barley: the grain used to make beer (rhymes with "Harley")
barely: hardly (rhymes with "rarely")
breath: the noun (rhymes with "death")
breathe: the verb (rhymes with "seethe")
collage: something made from a variety of magazine cut-outs mounted on paper (rhymes with "garage")
college: university (rhymes with "knowledge")
corpse: dead body (rhymes with "warps")
corps: army or similar organization (rhymes with "four"); also the plural of "corp" when it's short for "corporation"
coup: act of overthrowing a government (rhymes with "new")
coupe: vehicle (rhymes with "group" in U.S. English, pronounced "koop-ay" elsewhere - the word is in fact French, and has an accented 'e' - coupé)
everyday: routine, commonplace; often used instead of:
every day: daily, once per day
now: at the present time (rhymes with "how")
know: be familiar with the facts; be acquainted with; be aware (rhymes with "go")
of: belonging to or somehow connected with; associated with; forming a part of; a certain amount of (rhymes with "love")
off: opposite of on (rhymes with "cough")
've: This is the word "have" as part of a contraction. This sounds like "of" after some words like "could" and "might", but is actually a contraction for "have" (could have, might have). You write: should've, might've, would've, etc.
physics: the laws that govern objects moving in space; related to physical, physiology, physicist, physician (the first syllable sounds like "fizz")
psychic: having ESP; pertaining to the soul; related to psychology, psychiatrist, psyche, psycho, psychedelic, psychopath, psyched (psychic scars) (the first syllable sounds like "sigh")
quite: rather, to an impressive degree (rhymes with "night")
quiet: not very loud (rhymes with "riot")
through: from one end to the other; finished (rhymes with "new")
thorough: complete, exhaustive (rhymes with "burro")
were: past tense of the verb to be (I was, you were) (rhymes with "fur")
where: at what place? (rhymes with "share")
wear: have clothes on; break something down eventually through use (wear out, wear thin, wear and tear) (rhymes with "share")
See also: List of words widely abused in English