How to spell removal

hear itre·mov·al/rɪ'muvəl/nounSchwa and roots

What it means: The act of taking something away.

In a sentence: The removal of the old tree made more room for the new playground.

The part people get wrong

Watch for an unstressed vowel that is hard to hear. Often misspelled as removel or remouval.

Same family: removing, removed, remover, removalist, elimination. If you can spell one, the shared part carries to the others.

Where it comes from: “Removal” comes from the verb “remove,” which came into English from Old French and ultimately from Latin roots meaning ‘to move back or away.’ The suffix “-al” turns the verb into a noun, giving us the meaning ‘the act of removing.’

Patterns it uses: The unstressed vowel (schwa)

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