How to spell cleopatra

hear itcle·o·pa·tra/,kliə'pætrə/nounSilent and tricky

What it means: A famous queen of ancient Egypt.

In a sentence: Cleopatra was a famous queen in ancient Egypt.

The part people get wrong

Watch for an unstressed vowel that is hard to hear. Often misspelled as cleopetra or cleopatria.

Same family: queen, pharaoh, Egypt, Julius Caesar, Mark Antony. If you can spell one, the shared part carries to the others.

Where it comes from: The name Cleopatra comes from ancient Greek, meaning roughly “glory of the father” (from 'kleos' = glory and 'patēr' = father). Cleopatra VII, the most famous Cleopatra, was actually part of a Greek-speaking dynasty called the Ptolemies who ruled Egypt after Alexander the Great.

Patterns it uses: The unstressed vowel (schwa)

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