How to spell significant

hear itsig·nif·i·cant/sɪɡ'nɪfəkənt/adjectiveSilent and tricky

What it means: Important or meaningful in a particular context.

In a sentence: The big tree in the park is a significant part of our neighborhood.

The part people get wrong

Watch for an unstressed vowel that is hard to hear. Often misspelled as signifiant or significiant.

Same family: significance, insignificant, signify, sign, meaningful. If you can spell one, the shared part carries to the others.

Where it comes from: “Significant” comes from Latin roots: *signum* meaning “mark” or “token” and *facere* meaning “to make,” so it originally carried the idea of something that “makes a sign” or clearly shows meaning or importance.

Patterns it uses: The unstressed vowel (schwa)

Try spelling it

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