Spelling.School · How to spell

How to spell return

hear itre·turn/rɪ'tɜrn/verbSilent and tricky

What it means: To give something back.

In a sentence: I will return the book to the library tomorrow.

The part people get wrong

Often misspelled as retun or retern.

Same family: returns, returned, returning, turnover, revenue. If you can spell one, the shared part carries to the others.

Where it comes from: “Return” comes from Old French “retorner,” meaning ‘to turn back,’ built from Latin roots re- (‘back, again’) and tornare (‘to turn on a lathe’). Over time, its meaning expanded from simply going back to also include money that ‘comes back’ to you as profit.

Patterns it uses: Prefixes keep every letter

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