Spelling.School · How to spell

How to spell settlement

hear itset·tle·ment/'sɛtəl_mənt/nounHidden vowels

What it means: A small community or village built in a new place.

In a sentence: The settlers made a new settlement by the river.

The part people get wrong

Watch for double t, and an unstressed vowel that is hard to hear. Often misspelled as settlment or settelment.

Same family: settler, resettlement, colonization, colony, establish. If you can spell one, the shared part carries to the others.

Where it comes from: Settlement comes from the verb "settle," which traces back to Old English "setlan," meaning to cause to sit or place. Over time it came to mean creating a permanent place to live, which is how we now use it for colonies and new towns.

Patterns it uses: The unstressed vowel (schwa)

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