-ance or -ence? -ant or -ent? The Endings Nobody Can Hear

"Independent" or "independant"? "Existence" or "existance"? "Relevant" or "relevent"? If you have ever stopped mid-sentence to stare at one of these, you are in excellent company. These endings catch editors, lawyers and English teachers every working day.

The problem is not you. In ordinary speech, -ance and -ence sound exactly alike, and so do -ant and -ent. The ear offers nothing. That is why "sound it out" fails completely here, and why so many careful writers give up and trust the red underline.

There is no single rule that settles every word, and anyone who offers you one is overselling. But there is a small set of clues that, taken together, decide most common words, and what they leave behind fits on a short list you can simply learn. Below you will find the clues, the traps worth knowing by name, nearly ninety common words sorted by the clue that settles them, and a way of practicing that makes the choice automatic.

Why the ear gives up

Say "important" at a normal pace. The stress lands on "por", and the final syllable collapses into something like "unt", a quick neutral grunt that could be spelled with any vowel at all.

That sound is the schwa, the most common vowel in English. It lives in unstressed syllables, where vowels lose their individual character, and in that position an a and an e are indistinguishable.

That is the whole problem in one sentence. The difference between -ance and -ence is real on the page, but it vanished from speech centuries ago, so every useful clue has to come from somewhere other than the sound of the ending itself. If schwa is new to you, the post on the schwa sound explains it properly.

Where the two endings came from

Most of these words come from Latin, many of them by way of French. Latin verbs fell into groups called conjugations, and the group decided the vowel. Verbs in the first group, the ones ending in -are, like tolerare, produced words in -ant and -antia. Verbs in the other groups, like existere, produced words in -ent and -entia. Those became our -ance and -ence.

If that were the whole story, you would only need to know the Latin verb. But French, through which many of these words passed, liked -ance and used it even where Latin had an e. Later, English scholars restored the Latin vowel in some words and left others in their French form. So "existence" was brought back into line with Latin, while "resistance", from a Latin verb of the same group, kept its French a.

Knowing this is useful, if only so that you stop blaming yourself. For a minority of words the choice really is an accident of history. For most, though, one of the following clues will settle it.

Clue one: listen to the c or g

This is the most reliable clue, and it borrows a rule you already know. The letter c is hard before a, o and u, as in "cat", and soft before e, i and y, as in "city". The letter g behaves the same way: hard in "gate", and usually soft in "gem".

So listen to the consonant just before the ending. If it is a hard c or g, the ending must be -ance or -ant, because an e would soften it: significant, elegant, arrogance, extravagant, applicant, vacant. If it is soft, the ending must be -ence or -ent, because an a would harden it: innocent, magnificent, intelligence, negligent, urgent, adolescent.

The apparent exceptions turn out to prove the rule. "Vengeance" has a soft g followed by an a, but only because it slips in an extra e to keep the g soft, exactly as "manageable" does. The post on soft and hard c and g covers the underlying rule in full.

Clue two: find a relative with a loud vowel

Many of these words have a longer relative in which the stress moves onto the ending. When the stress arrives, the vowel comes back to life.

"Confident" becomes "confidential", and suddenly you can hear the e in "den". "Resident" has "residential", "evident" has "evidential", "influence" has "influential", and "essence" has "essential". It works for a as well. "Substance" becomes "substantial", where you hear "stan". "Circumstance" gives "circumstantial", "finance" gives "financial", and "instant" gives "instantaneous".

This is morphology at work, the study of how words are built from meaningful parts, and it is one of the most useful tools a speller has. In a 2010 review, Peter Bowers, John Kirby and Hélène Deacon found that teaching students how words are built improves their spelling, with some of the biggest gains among weaker spellers. Hunting for the relative with the loud vowel is one of the most practical ways to put that finding to work.

Clue three: look at the verb

Many of these words grow from an English verb, and the shape of the verb is a strong hint.

Verbs ending in -ate usually give -ant and -ance: tolerate gives tolerant and tolerance, dominate gives dominant, hesitate gives hesitant, radiate gives radiant, participate gives participant. That follows the Latin pattern, since most -ate verbs descend from the first conjugation. Verbs ending in -y also take a: rely gives reliance, comply gives compliance, defy gives defiance, vary gives variance, ally gives alliance. So do verbs in -ure, which give assurance, endurance and insurance.

On the other side, verbs ending in a stressed -er or -ur take e. Refer, prefer, confer and infer give reference, preference, conference and inference; occur and recur give occurrence and recurrence. Verbs in -ere follow them, so interfere gives interference, adhere gives adherent, and cohere gives coherent.

Clue four: after qu, write e

This one is short and nearly airtight. After qu, the ending is -ence or -ent: frequent, eloquent, sequence, consequence, subsequent, delinquent. The rare exceptions, such as "piquant", are later borrowings straight from French, and most people will write them once in their lives.

Clue five: the -ist verbs, and two famous rebels

Verbs ending in -ist mostly give e. Exist gives existence, persist gives persistence, insist gives insistent, consist gives consistent, and subsist gives subsistence. That is why "existance" is wrong.

Two common verbs break ranks, both of them French survivors from the history above: "resist" gives "resistance", and "assist" gives "assistant". There is no clue that rescues them. They are simply the two to learn by name, and one sentence holds both: the assistant joined the resistance.

The traps worth knowing by name

A few words defeat every clue, or seem to follow one when they do not.

"Independent" ends in -ent, and so do "independence" and "dependence", in American and British English alike. The confusion comes from British usage, which keeps "dependant" as a noun for a person who depends on someone, such as a child listed on a tax form, and uses "dependent" as the adjective. American English generally writes "dependent" for both. "Independant" is wrong everywhere.

"Maintenance" comes from "maintain" but drops the i and takes -ance; saying it to yourself as "main-ten-ance" helps. "Relevant" takes a, following its Latin verb relevare. And a handful of common words take -ance with no usable clue at all: attendance, appearance, acquaintance, perseverance, ignorance, importance. Those go on the learn-by-heart list, which is shorter than it looks.

One choice covers the whole family

Here is the saving that makes all of this much lighter. Once you know the vowel for one member of a family, you know it for all of them, because the a or e holds across -ant, -ance and -ancy, and across -ent, -ence and -ency.

"Vacant" gives "vacancy". "Dominant" gives "dominance", "frequent" gives "frequency", and "consistent" gives "consistency". "Emergent" goes with "emergency", and "pregnant" goes with "pregnancy". So the words below are really about thirty families, and when you look one up, look up the family and note it once.

The common words, sorted by clue

A thirty-second routine for when you are stuck

When you are halfway through an email and stuck on an ending, run the clues in order. Start with the consonant before the ending, and decide whether it is hard or soft. Then look for a longer relative in which the vowel is loud. Next, think of the verb and whether it ends in -ate, -y, -ure or a stressed -er. Last, check for a qu.

If none of that helps, you have found a learn-by-heart word. Look it up and add it to your practice list. Each lookup costs five seconds, and after a few weeks you will be making far fewer of them.

How to practice by family

The worst way to learn these words is one at a time from a random list. You will get "tolerance" right on Monday and write "tolerence" on Thursday. The better way is to learn the clues, then practice words from different clues mixed together.

Spend the first five days on one clue each. On the first day, take the hard and soft c and g words: say each word, name the sound of the consonant before the ending, write the word from memory, and check it. The word matters less than the habit of asking what that c sounds like.

From the sixth day, mix everything. Have someone read out words from every row in random order, or record yourself reading them, and for each one, write it and name the clue that settled it. Mixing feels harder, and that is the point. Research on interleaving, including a 2007 study by Doug Rohrer and Kelli Taylor, found that mixing problem types beats practicing one type at a time, because it forces you to choose the method, which is exactly what real writing demands. The post on interleaving spelling words explains why it works.

Keep the learn-by-heart words on their own short list and test them every few days, bringing each back just before you are likely to forget it: after a day, then three days, then a week. That spacing is what Spelling.School schedules automatically, but a paper list with dates written beside each word does the same job.

Your next step

Take the three words from this page you are least sure of. For each, write down the clue that settles it, or "learn by heart" if nothing does. Test yourself on those three tomorrow, and again three days later.

When they hold, take the next three. And if you want the same kind of help with another ending nobody can hear, -able or -ible works in much the same way.

Questions people ask

When is it ance and when is it ence?

No single rule covers every word, but a few clues settle most of them. A hard c or g before the ending means -ance, and a soft c or g means -ence. A related word where the vowel is stressed, such as "substantial" or "confidential", reveals the letter, and verbs ending in -ate or -y usually give -ance while verbs ending in a stressed -er give -ence. Words that no clue settles, such as "attendance", have to be learned individually.

Is it independent or independant?

The correct spelling is "independent", with -ent, in both American and British English. The noun is "independence", also with an e. The confusion comes from British English, where "dependant" is a noun for a person who depends on someone, but "independant" is wrong everywhere.

Why can't I hear the difference between ant and ent?

The endings -ant and -ent are unstressed, and in unstressed syllables English vowels shrink to a neutral sound called the schwa. In that position an a and an e sound identical, so the ear has nothing to work with. You have to rely on clues from spelling rules, related words and word history instead of on the sound.

Is there a rule for ance and ence?

There is no single rule, because the endings come partly from Latin and partly from French, and the two languages did not always agree. There are, however, reliable clues: the sound of a c or g before the ending, a related word with a stressed vowel, the form of the verb, and a qu before the ending. Together these settle most common words.

Is it existence or existance?

The correct spelling is "existence", with -ence. Verbs ending in -ist, such as exist, persist and insist, usually give words ending in -ence or -ent. The two famous exceptions are "resistance" and "assistant", which kept an a from French.

Is it relevant or relevent?

The correct spelling is "relevant", with -ant, and the noun is "relevance". The a comes from its Latin source verb, relevare, which belonged to the group of Latin verbs that produced -ant words. Because no sound clue helps, "relevant" is one of the words best learned by heart.

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