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How to spell addition

Addition is spelled A-D-D-I-T-I-O-N. The part people get wrong: double D.

hear itad·di·tion/ə'dɪʃən/nounSilent and tricky

What it means: The arithmetic operation of summing numbers.

In a sentence: I learned addition in math class today.

The part people get wrong

Watch for double d, and an unstressed vowel that is hard to hear.

Same family: added, adding, additional, additionally, addition/subtraction. If you can spell one, the shared part carries to the others.

Where it comes from: “Addition” comes from Latin *additio*, meaning “a adding to,” from *addere* (“to give to” or “to add”). It has been used in English for both everyday ‘extra things’ and the mathematical operation since the Middle Ages.

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