How to spell semester

hear itse·mes·ter/sɪ'mɛstər/nounSchwa and roots

What it means: One of the two terms in a school year.

In a sentence: In school, a semester is like half the year with fun lessons to learn.

The part people get wrong

Watch for an unstressed vowel that is hard to hear. Often misspelled as semister or semseter.

Same family: trimester, quarter, term, midterm, school-year. If you can spell one, the shared part carries to the others.

Where it comes from: The word "semester" comes from Latin roots: "sex" meaning "six" and "mensis" meaning "month," so it literally referred to a period of six months—just like a half-year school term.

Patterns it uses: The unstressed vowel (schwa)

Try spelling it

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