Separate or seperate: which is correct?
Standard form: separate — Non-standard: seperate / seprate. Separate = forming a unit by itself, not joined (adjective); to divide or move apart (verb).
- Part of speech
- adjective / verb
- Source
- Oxford
Why
Oxford: separate comes from Latin separare (se- apart + parare to prepare) and keeps the a of its root in the middle syllable: sep-a-rate. The old classroom reminder is that there is "a rat" in separate.
Examples
- Please keep the two files in separate folders.
- The teacher had to separate the arguing students.
Wrong → right
Native spelling engine
- Checked against
- Merriam-Webster / Oxford
- Spelling authority
- Merriam-Webster · Oxford English Dictionary / Oxford spelling · SCOWL
- Commonly confused and non-standard forms
- 64
- Dictionary
- Hunspell en_US / en_GB / en_AU / en_CA · Dictionary license: MIT AND BSD (SCOWL combined licence)
Commonly confused words
Commonly confused words are pairs or groups that sound or look alike but differ in meaning or grammar, such as affect and effect, its and it’s, or principal and principle. Each entry here explains the difference in plain words, shows it in two example sentences and names the convention it follows: Merriam-Webster for American English, Oxford for British English. Spelling variants such as colour and color are marked as correct in their own variety, not as errors.
Related entries
- Standard form: definitelyNon-standard: definately, definitly, definetly
- Standard form: necessaryNon-standard: neccessary, necesary, neccesary
- Standard form: a lotNon-standard: alot
- Standard form: accommodateNon-standard: accomodate, acommodate, acomodate
- Desert or dessert
- Standard form: embarrassNon-standard: embarass, embarras