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One of the key components of the Improve Your English Online site is the focus on helping you understand the difference between the most commonly confused words in English. These words are notorious for tripping people up, causing even native English speakers to make embarrassing errors in English usage.
Being able to correctly differentiate between confusing words will enable you to become a better speaker and writer of English. This will help you advance in your schooling, improve your job prospects, and enhance your success in any field of endeavor.
This page comprises the top 40 hits (or should I say “misses”?) of the words in English that are most commonly mixed up with other words.
Under each entry, you’ll find definitions for each word along with example sentences to show you its correct usage. Most of the entries also contain memory aids to help you tell the difference between commonly confused words: these tips are marked with a pointing hand symbol.
Many of the word pairs included in this collection are types of homonyms: they may sound alike or be spelled in a similar way, but have different meanings. Unfortunately, spellchecker programs often fail to alert you when you’ve used the wrong word, because you may have spelled it correctly. That’s why it’s imperative that you be able to tell the difference between these troublesome word pairs yourself.
Top 40 Commonly Confused Word Pairs
- accept/except
- advise/advice
- affect/effect
- all together/altogether
- appraise/apprise
- assure/ensure/insure
- bring/take
- can/may
- capitol/capital
- compliment/complement
- compose/comprise
- continual/continuous
- council/counsel/consul
- devise/device
- discrete/discreet
- disinterested/uninterested
- e.g./i.e.
- elicit/illicit
- emigrate/immigrate
- farther/further
- fewer/less
- flare/flair
- flaunt/flout
- horde/hoard
- imply/infer
- it’s/its
- lay/lie
- lend/loan
- loath/loathe
- lose/loose
- passed/past
- prescribe/proscribe
- principal/principle
- sight/site/cite
- stationary/stationery
- they’re/there/their
- to/too/two
- weather/whether
- who’s/whose
- you’re/your/yore
Photo credits: Photo 1: Image by Robin Higgins from Pixabay