How to spell cologne

hear itco·logne/kə'loʊn/nounSilent and tricky

What it means: A scented liquid used on the body.

In a sentence: Dad puts on cologne to smell nice for work.

The part people get wrong

Watch for a silent g, and an unstressed vowel that is hard to hear. Often misspelled as cologn or collogne.

Same family: German, Rhine, Hanseatic, port, cathedral. If you can spell one, the shared part carries to the others.

Where it comes from: The English name "Cologne" comes from the French form of the city’s Latin name, "Colonia," short for "Colonia Claudia Ara Agrippinensium," meaning a Roman settlement. Because the city later became famous for scented products, its name was also used for the perfume called "eau de Cologne."

Patterns it uses: The unstressed vowel (schwa) · Silent letters

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Words like this

gnaw · foreign · align · assign · sign · campaign · psalm · moisten

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