How to spell approval

hear itap·prov·al/ə'pruvəl/nounSchwa and roots

What it means: The act of accepting something as satisfactory.

In a sentence: The teacher gave her approval for the art project.

The part people get wrong

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

Same family: approved, approving, disapprove, approval rating, authorization. If you can spell one, the shared part carries to the others.

Where it comes from: “Approval” comes from the Old French word “aprover,” meaning “to assent to or prove true.” It’s built on the verb “approve” plus the noun-forming suffix “-al,” turning the action of approving into the thing itself—the act of approval.

Patterns it uses: The unstressed vowel (schwa)

Try spelling it

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Words like this

marital · appraisal · removal · refusal · beneficiary · verification · infection · monastery

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