How to spell permanent

hear itper·ma·nent/'pɜrmənənt/adjectiveSchwa and roots

What it means: Lasting or intended to last indefinitely.

In a sentence: A tattoo is a permanent picture on your skin.

The part people get wrong

Watch for an unstressed vowel that is hard to hear. Often misspelled as permenent or permanentt.

Same family: perm, permanently, hairdo, hairstyle, stylist. If you can spell one, the shared part carries to the others.

Where it comes from: The hairstyle meaning of "permanent" comes from the longer phrase "permanent wave," first popular in the early 1900s when new chemical treatments could keep hair curly for months. Over time, people shortened "permanent wave" to just "permanent" and then even further to "perm."

Patterns it uses: The unstressed vowel (schwa)

Try spelling it

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Words like this

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