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How to spell apparatus

hear itap·pa·rat·us/,æpə'rætəs/nounHidden vowels

What it means: Equipment used for a specific purpose.

In a sentence: The science teacher showed us how to use the apparatus for the experiment.

The part people get wrong

Watch for double p, and an unstressed vowel that is hard to hear. Often misspelled as aparatus or apparatous.

Same family: equipment, device, machinery, instrument, tool. If you can spell one, the shared part carries to the others.

Where it comes from: Apparatus comes from Latin "apparatus," meaning "preparation" or "equipment," from the verb "apparare" (to prepare). It originally referred to things prepared for a particular purpose, which is why it now means specialized equipment used for a job or experiment.

Patterns it uses: The unstressed vowel (schwa)

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