Spelling.School · How to spell

How to spell character

hear itchar·ac·ter/'kærɪktər/nounRules and real life

What it means: A person in a story or play.

In a sentence: The main character in the story is a brave knight.

The part people get wrong

Watch for an unstressed vowel that is hard to hear. Often misspelled as charactor or caracter.

Same family: characteristic, characterize, characterization, good-character, reference-letter. If you can spell one, the shared part carries to the others.

Where it comes from: Character comes from the Greek word ‘kharaktēr,’ which originally meant an engraved mark or stamp. Over time, it came to mean someone’s distinctive qualities, and from there developed the idea of a ‘character reference’ describing a person’s reliability and moral qualities for employers.

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.