Spelling.School · How to spell

How to spell concern

hear itcon·cern/kən'sɜrn/nounRules and real life

What it means: A feeling of worry or interest about something.

In a sentence: The teacher had a concern about the missing homework.

The part people get wrong

Watch for an unstressed vowel that is hard to hear. Often misspelled as concerned or consern.

Same family: concerned, concerning, unconcerned, worry, care. If you can spell one, the shared part carries to the others.

Where it comes from: “Concern” comes from Medieval Latin *concernere*, meaning “to distinguish” or “to sift together,” which later developed the idea of something that closely relates to you. Over time, it shifted in English to mean both ‘to be about something’ and ‘to cause worry.’

Patterns it uses: The unstressed vowel (schwa)

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