How to spell common

hear itcom·mon/'kɑmən/adjectiveLong vowels

What it means: Frequently seen or encountered.

In a sentence: Cats and dogs are common pets in many homes.

The part people get wrong

Watch for double m, and an unstressed vowel that is hard to hear. Often misspelled as comon or commen.

Same family: common (adjective), commonly, commonplace, commoner, commonality. If you can spell one, the shared part carries to the others.

Where it comes from: In this land-use sense, “common” comes from medieval English villages, where the “common” was land shared by all villagers for grazing animals. The word ultimately goes back to Latin “communis,” meaning “shared by all” or “public.”

Patterns it uses: The unstressed vowel (schwa)

Try spelling it

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Words like this

phenomenon · knowledge · phobia · additional · never · little · answer · done

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