The Top Misspelled Words of 2025

If we asked you what the most common misspelled words are, do you think you would know? Do you think they are the same in classrooms all over the UK? What about all over the world? The results for 2025 are in! 

In 2025, a whopping 530,695,544 words were spelled using Spelling Shed. This was by 936,926 children across the world. 

Top 10 Misspelled Words Globally 

Here are the top ten misspelled words globally: 

You might have guessed some of these, you might even have a little difficulty spelling some of these yourself. So, what were the most common ways of misspelling them? 

‘Sketch’ being the number 1 misspelled word may come as a surprise. The confusion is knowing which ‘k’ to use at the beginning of the word and knowing the order of the ‘tch’ at the end of the word. Spelling ‘sketch’ as ‘scetch’ is phonologically plausible; therefore, we need to teach children which ‘k’ grapheme to use when. We can do this by developing their orthographic knowledge. Read more here.  

The trigraph ‘tch’ and the digraph ‘ch’ represent the same phoneme, which can cause confusion. Although these are initially taught in phonics, it clearly shows that we can’t just rely on phonics and need to use a multi-element approach to teach spelling. In Spelling Shed, this is taught in Stage 1 and recapped in Stage 3 and Stage 6. We need to teach children the spelling patterns, so they understand which one to use.  

If the final /ch/ phoneme comes after a consonant, then we use ‘ch’, e.g., church, branch and research. If the final /ch/ phoneme follows a one-letter short vowel sound, we generally use ‘tch’, e.g., itch, catch, witch and pitch. Of course, there are some exceptions to this spelling pattern.  

February was the second most misspelled word. The confusion is knowing how many ‘r’s are in February and where they are in the word. The other confusion is knowing the order of the ‘u’ and ‘a’ in the middle of the word. Splitting the word into syllables (Feb/ru/ar/y) can help children to spell this word correctly. We can also encourage children to use their spelling voice. This is where you exaggerate the sounds, so you would say it in your head as ‘Feb-ru-ary’.  

The word ‘mischievous’ gained the number three spot for the most misspelled words. The parts of the word that children struggled with the most was the ‘ie’ in the middle of the word and the suffix ‘ous’. Looking at the morphology and etymology of this word can help explain why it is spelled the way it is. The word ‘mischievous’ comes from the word ‘mischief’, which explains why it is spelled ‘ie’. We can split the word into three morphemes: ‘mis’, ‘chief’ and ‘ous’. The prefix ‘mis-’ means ‘badly’ or ‘wrong’, ‘chief’ comes from the Latin word ‘capere’ meaning ‘head’ and the suffix ‘-ous’ means ‘having the quality of. Interestingly, the meaning of the word has changed over the years to mean ‘cheeky and playful’. You may also wonder why the ‘f’ became a ‘v’. This follows the spelling pattern of when you add a suffix beginning with a vowel to a word ending in ‘f’, it changes to a ‘v’. Other example of this spelling pattern is ‘knife’ becoming ‘knives’ and ‘leaf’ becoming ‘leaves’. 

Top 10 Misspelled Words in the UK  

Here are the top ten misspelled words in the UK: 

The top 10 misspelled words in the UK are almost identical to the global list. However, ‘mischievous’ ranked a place higher.  

The word ‘mustn’t’ appears in this list, just below the word ‘couldn’t’. The part children struggle with here is knowing where to put the apostrophe. This indicates that they do not understand that these words are contractions and that the apostrophe is replacing a letter. We can teach contractions by looking at the two separate words, for example, ‘could not’ and then the contraction ‘couldn’t’. We can identify that the apostrophe replaces the ‘o’ in the word ‘not’.  

The word ‘license’ is the sixth most misspelled word in the UK and the fifth most misspelled globally. This is one of those words that you may also struggle with. It is a homophone and knowing when to use it depends on if it is being used as a noun or a verb. The common misspellings of the words show that children also struggle to know which order the ‘c’ and the ‘s’ go in.  

Top 10 Misspelled Words in England  

Here are the top ten misspelled words in England: 

Surprisingly, only three of the most common misspelled words on the England list are on the National Curriculum Statutory Word Lists. These are ‘mischievous’ and ‘convenience’, which are on the Year 5 and 6 Statutory Word List and ‘February’, which is on the Year 3 and 4 Statutory Word List.  

The words on the list are similar to those in the global and UK lists; however, ‘indefinite’ and ‘definitely’ rank higher. We might expect to see ‘definitely’ spelled as ‘defiantly’ here, but it is actually the ‘e’ in ‘definitely’ that causes the confusion. This also causes confusion when spelling the word ‘indefinite’. This is another error that can be explained by looking at morphology. The base word is ‘definite’, so if children can spell that, then they only need to add the suffix ‘ly’ to spell the word ‘definitely’ or add the prefix ‘in’ to spell the word ‘indefinite’.  

Top 10 Misspelled Words in Scotland  

Here are the top ten misspelled words in Scotland: 

The top ten most misspelled words in Scotland are quite different from the words on the previous lists, with the top most misspelled word being ‘regretting’. The two most common misspellings include forgetting to double the ‘t’ when adding the suffix ‘-ing’. This is a morphological error. The word ‘regretting’ can be split into three morphemes: re + gret + ing. However, we need to double the final consonant of the word because the word ‘regret’ has the short vowel sound. By teaching children this spelling pattern, they can apply this knowledge to other words such as ‘beginning’ and ‘forgetting’.  

The second most misspelled word on the list may not come as a surprise, as lots of adults also struggle to spell the word ‘sincerely’. The most common mistakes include missing the ‘e’. However, if you know that the base/root word is ‘sincere’, then it becomes a lot easier to spell and we can simply add the suffix ‘-ly’.  

Top 10 Misspelled Words in Northern Ireland  

Here are the top ten misspelled words in Northern Ireland: 

One thing that you might notice when looking at the most common misspelled words for Northern Ireland is the number of homophones in the list. 70% of the words in the top ten misspelled words are homophones, with ‘practise’ and ‘practice’ topping the list. The word ‘practice’ is a noun, whereas the word ‘practise’ is a verb. 

In order to use the correct homophone, it is important to understand the context. For example, the word ‘stationary’ means ‘not moving or not changing’, whereas the word ‘stationery’ refers to ‘the things needed for writing’.  

Top 10 Misspelled Words in Wales 

Here are the top ten misspelled words in Wales: 

The word ‘regretting’ is the second most misspelled word in Wales and the misspellings are similar to the ones in the Scotland list.  

We see similar errors when spelling the words ‘preferred’ and ‘committed’ as children struggle to know whether to double the consonant and which consonant to double. This is the same suffix pattern as ‘regretting’. We need to look at the base words, which are ‘prefer’ and ‘commit’ and double the final consonant of the words because they have short vowel sounds.  

Prefer + ed = preferred 

Commit + ed = committed 

Top 10 Misspelled Words in the Channel Islands  

Here are the top ten misspelled words in the Channel Islands: 

The word ‘license’ has been in most of the lists so far; however, it is the number one most misspelled words in the Channel Islands list. ‘Practise’ is also on the list, although ‘practice’ is not and the homophones ‘stationary’ and ‘brake’ also make the list.  

The word ‘provincial’ secures the third spot on the most misspelled word list for the Channel Islands. The part of the word that children struggle with is knowing whether to use the suffix ‘-cial’ or ‘-tial’. Unfortunately, this word does not follow the usual spelling pattern for ‘cial’ or ‘tial’, but it is a good example of an exception to the pattern.  

The word ‘Christmas’ is the fourth most misspelled word on this list. ‘Christmas’ can be split into ‘Christ’ and ‘mas’. ‘Mas’ is from the Latin word ‘missa’, meaning ‘church service’, so Christmas means the ‘mass of Christ’.  

Top 10 Misspelled Words in the USA 

Here are the top ten misspelled words in the USA: 

Although the top most misspelled words in America are quite different from the words that are on the other lists so far, we can spot a clear pattern. The words ‘achieve’, ‘believe’ and ‘piece’ all contain ‘ie’. Therefore, if we were looking at addressing this from a teacher perspective, we could group those words together. From looking at the most common misspellings of these words, it is clear that it is the ‘ie’ part that children struggle with. This is because ‘ei’ also makes the /ee/ sound, e.g., receive, deceive and perceive. Looking at the etymology of these words can help explain why they are spelled the way they are. In some words, especially ones that come from French, the digraph ‘ei’ represents /ee/. The word ‘receive’ comes from the Old French word ‘receivre’, whereas the word ‘believe’ comes from the Old English word ‘belīefan’. 

The word ‘piece’ is also a homophone and you might have expected to see the homophones ‘they’re’ and ‘their’ in the other lists.  

The word ‘calendar’ is the second most misspelled word. As you might expect, children struggle with knowing if it is ‘e’ or ‘a’ in the middle and ‘ar’ or ‘er’ at the end of the word. This word ends in a schwa. Knowing which ending to use is meaning-based.  

The word ‘calendar’ is related to the Roman word ‘calends’ – the first day of the Roman month, when debts fell due and accounts were reckoned.  

Top 10 Misspelled Words in Australia 

Here are the top ten misspelled words in Australia: 

When looking at the top ten misspelled words for Australia, you may notice a crossover between some of the words, such as ‘February’, ‘license’, ‘practice’ and ‘practise’ in this list and those in the aforementioned England, Channel Islands and Northern Ireland lists. This shows that the misspelling of these words is not a regional issue. 

The word ‘meant’ is the top most misspelled word in Australia. The part that children struggle with the most is knowing the ‘ea’ part in the middle. Rather than expecting children to memorise the word, we can explain that the word ‘mean’ is the present tense and ‘meant’ is past tense.  

Top 10 Misspelled Words in South Africa 

Here are the top ten misspelled words in South Africa: 

Although the top ten most misspelled words in South Africa seem quite different from the words on the other lists, we can still see some patterns reoccurring. The list contains two homophones: ‘male’ and ‘reign’, an apostrophe error: can’t, and children struggling with ‘tch’ in the words ‘stretch’ and ‘scratch’, which is similar to the misspelling of the word ‘sketch’ that we saw in the UK list.  

The word ‘with’ is a word that you might expect to see in this list. Although this word should be simple to spell using phonological knowledge, it is the /w/ sound at the beginning of the word that confuses children. This is because children have encountered words with the /w/ sound spelled ‘wh’, such as ‘when’, ‘where’ and ‘who’.  

From looking at all of the lists, we can spot similar spelling mistakes being made, with some of the same words being commonly misspelled in different regions and countries. We can also spot common patterns of mistakes, such as knowing which homophone to use, orthographical errors and morphological errors. This reinforces the importance of not expecting children to memorise words but teaching spelling as a multi-layered approach, incorporating phonics, morphology, etymology and orthographic choices.  

Spelling Shed takes the guesswork out of spelling. The multi-award-winning platform includes a scheme that is built on the Science of Spelling, which is simply the research of how and why spelling instruction works. Rather than expecting children to memorise words, we teach them how words work. This means giving them strategies they can use. We use direct instruction, guided word study and targeted practice to help children understand the relationships between sounds, letters and meaning. Lessons incorporate phonics, morphology, etymology and activities that support orthographic mapping. Spelling Shed’s lists have been carefully developed to follow a systematic progression of skills. Lessons are fully planned and fully resourced, ensuring a consistent approach to teaching spelling across schools. This also gives educators peace of mind that they are teaching spelling effectively.