![]() These include Germanic words like anger, mother, timber, water and Romance words like danger, quarter, river.ĪmE has exceptions too: Theater is the prevailing American spelling used to refer to both the dramatic arts and buildings where stage performances and screenings of movies take place (i.e., "movie theaters") for example, a national newspaper such as The New York Times uses theater throughout its "Theater", "Movies", and "Arts & Leisure" sections. Many other words have -er in British English. However, while poetic metre is often -re, pentameter, hexameter, etc. One consequence is the British distinction of meter for a measuring instrument from metre for the unit of length. ![]() The difference relates only to root words -er rather than -re is universal as a suffix for agentive (reader, winner, user) and comparative (louder, nicer) forms. ![]() However such dropping cannot be regarded as proof of an -re British spelling: for example, entry derives from enter, which has not been spelled entre for centuries. It is dropped for other derivations, for example, central, fibrous, spectral. Centring is a particularly interesting example, since it is still pronounced as three syllables in British English (/ˈsɛntərɪŋ/), yet there is no vowel letter in the spelling corresponding to the second syllable. In the United States, ogre and euchre are standard manoeuvre and sepulchre are usually spelled as maneuver and sepulcher and the other -re forms listed are less used variants of the equivalent -er form.Įven American-derived forms of nouns and verbs, for example, fibers, reconnoitered, centering, are, naturally, fibres, reconnoitred and centring respectively in BrE. The ending -cre, as in acre, lucre, massacre, mediocre, is preserved in American English, to indicate the c is pronounced /k/ rather than /s/.Īfter other consonants, there are not many -re endings even in British English: louvre and manoeuvre after -v meagre (but not eager) and ogre after -g and euchre, ochre, and sepulchre after -ch. Many words spelled with -re in Modern French are spelled with -er in both British and American usage among these are chapter, December, diameter, perimeter, disaster, enter, filter, letter, member, minister, monster, October, November, number, oyster, parameter, powder, proper, September, sober, and tender. ![]() ![]() Surprise surprise, there are many exceptions to the -re spelling in British usage. The difference is most common for words ending -bre or -tre: British spellings centre, kilometre, litre, lustre, mitre, nitre, reconnoitre, saltpetre, spectre, theatre, titre, calibre, fibre, sabre, and sombre all have -er in American spelling. In the USA most of these words (note "most" not all) have the more phonetic spelling of -er. In British usage, some words of French, Latin, or Greek origin end with a consonant followed by -re, the -re is actually pronounced /ər/. Double click on any word for its definition. ![]()
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