Spelling.School · How to spell

How to spell appropriate

hear itap·pro·pri·ate/ة™'proتٹpriةھt/adjectiveSilent and tricky

What it means: Suitable or right for a particular situation.

In a sentence: It's appropriate to say "thank you" when someone helps you.

The part people get wrong

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

Same family: appropriated, appropriating, appropriation, appropriations, appropriator. If you can spell one, the shared part carries to the others.

Where it comes from: The verb "appropriate" comes from Latin roots meaning "to make one's own" (ad + proprius). In modern English, this idea survives in the financial sense of "setting something aside for a particular person or purpose."

Patterns it uses: The unstressed vowel (schwa)

Try spelling it

You will hear the word and a sentence. Type it and press Enter. Then four more words from the same level, so you know where you stand.

Words like this

Spelling.School is a spaced-repetition spelling practice: ten minutes a day, every word spoken aloud, every miss explained, and every word coming back just before you would forget it. Try five words without signing up.