Spelling.School · How to spell

How to spell generous

hear itgen·er·ous/'dʒɛnərəs/adjectiveSchwa and roots

What it means: Willing to give and share freely.

In a sentence: The generous girl shared her cookies with all her friends.

The part people get wrong

Watch for an unstressed vowel that is hard to hear. Often misspelled as generuos or genrous.

Same family: generously, generosity, give, kind, charitable. If you can spell one, the shared part carries to the others.

Where it comes from: “Generous” comes from Latin *generosus*, meaning “of noble birth” or “noble in spirit.” Over time, the idea of noble character shifted to our modern sense of being kind and giving more than is necessary.

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.