How to spell software

hear itsoft·ware/'sɔft,wɜr/nounLong vowels

What it means: Written programs for computer operation.

In a sentence: My dad uses software to help him work on the computer.

The part people get wrong

Often misspelled as softwear or sofware.

Same family: software engineer, software developer, software update, software development, software program. If you can spell one, the shared part carries to the others.

Where it comes from: The word “software” was formed in the mid-20th century by combining “soft” with “hardware” to describe the invisible programs that make computers work. It plays on the contrast between physical computer parts (hardware) and the ‘soft’ coded instructions that run on them.

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