British English Spelling Guide

• Words ending in –re

American English words that end in -er often end in -re in British English:

US	British
center	centre
fiber	fibre
liter	litre
theatre	theatre

• Words ending in -our

American English words ending in -or usually end in -our in British English:

US	British
color	colour
flavor	flavour
humor	humour
labor	labour
neighbor	neighbour

• Words ending in -ize or -ise

Verbs in American English that can be spelled with either -ize at the end are always spelled with either -ise or -ize at the end in British English:

US	British
apologize	apologize or apologise
Organize	organize or organise
recognize	recognize or recognise

****Exception:

                  Practise – when used as a verb

                  Practice – when used as a noun

                  License – when used as a verb

                  Licence – when used as a noun

• Words ending in -yse

Verbs in American English that end in -yze are always spelled -yse in British English:

US	British
analyze	analyse
breathalyze	breathalyse
paralyze	paralyse

• Words ending in a vowel plus “L”

In British spelling, verbs ending in a vowel plus L double the L when adding endings that begin with a vowel. In American English, the l is not doubled:

US	British
travel	travel
traveled	travelled
traveling	travelling
traveler	traveller

fuel	fuel
fueled	fuelled
fueling	fuelling

• Words spelled with double vowels

British English words that are spelled with the double vowels ae or oe are just spelled with an e in American English:

US	British
leukemia	leukaemia
maneuver	manoeuvre
estrogen	oestrogen
pediatric	paediatric

Note that in American English, certain terms, such as archaeology, keep the ae spelling as standard, although the spelling with just the e (i.e. archeology) is usually acceptable as well.

• Nouns ending with –ence

Some nouns that end with -ense in American English are spelled -ence in British English:

US	British
defense	defence
license	licence
offense	offence
pretense	pretence

• Nouns ending with –ogue

Some nouns that end with either –og or -ogue in American English end with ‑ogue in American English:

US	British
analog or analogue	analogue
catalog or catalogue	catalogue
dialog or dialogue	dialogue

• Other Spelling changes (US changed to UK)
• “f” should be changed to “ph”
• sulfur to sulphur
• “-f” or “-w” should be changed to “-ugh”
• plow to plough
• “-i” should be changed to “-y”
• tire (wheels) to tyre
• “-m” should be changed to “-mme”
• program to programme
• “-ck” should be changed to “-que”
• check (noun) to cheque
• “-ing” should be changed to “-eing”
• aging to ageing
• “-ment” should be changed to “-ement”
• judgment to judgement
• “-able” should be changed to “-eable”
• usable to useable

MISCELLANEOUS
BRITISH	AMERICAN
aluminium	Aluminium
axe	ax
cosy	cozy
kerb (edge of road)	curb
furore	furor
grey	gray
carat	(gold) karat
liquorice	licorice
moustache	mustache
nought	naught
pyjamas	pajamas
sceptic	skeptic
phial	vial
whisky	whiskey

Punctuations

American	British	Symbol
Period	Full stop / stop	.
Comma	Comma	,
Semi-colon	Semi-colon	;
Colon	Colon	:
Parenthesis	Brackets	(  )
Brackets	Square Brackets	[  ]
Curly Brackets	Curly Brackets	{  }
Quotation marks	Inverted Commas	“ ”
Apostrophe	Apostrophe	‘
Slash	Back stroke or stroke	/
Question mark	Query or question mark	?
Exclamation mark	Exclamation point	!