Spelling.School · How to spell

How to spell stationery

hear itsta·tion·er·y/'steɪʃə,nɛri/nounSchwa and roots

What it means: Paper used for writing letters.

In a sentence: I used colorful stationery to write a letter to my friend.

The part people get wrong

Watch for an unstressed vowel that is hard to hear. Often misspelled as stationary or stationarry.

Sounds like, but is not: stationary. Same sound, different spelling and meaning.

Same family: station, stationer, stationary, letterhead, office-supplies. If you can spell one, the shared part carries to the others.

Where it comes from: Stationery comes from the word stationer, the name for booksellers and paper sellers who had fixed "stations" or stalls in medieval markets. The spelling with -ery later came to refer specifically to writing paper and related materials, while stationary (with an a) kept the meaning "not moving."

Patterns it uses: The unstressed vowel (schwa) · -tion, -sion or -cian?

Try spelling it

You will hear the word and a sentence. Type it and press Enter. Then four more words from the same level, so you know where you stand.

Words like this

Spelling.School is a spaced-repetition spelling practice: ten minutes a day, every word spoken aloud, every miss explained, and every word coming back just before you would forget it. Try five words without signing up.