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How to spell syllabus

Syllabus is spelled S-Y-L-L-A-B-U-S. The part people get wrong: double L.

hear itsyl·la·bus/'sɪləbəs/nounSchwa and roots

What it means: An outline of what will be taught in a course.

In a sentence: The teacher gave each student a colorful syllabus on the first day of school.

The part people get wrong

Watch for double l, and an unstressed vowel that is hard to hear.

Same family: syllabi, syllabuses, curriculum, outline, course-plan. If you can spell one, the shared part carries to the others.

Where it comes from: Syllabus comes from a mistaken reading of a Greek word in a 15th-century Latin manuscript, and the form 'syllabus' stuck. Its plural can be either the Latin-style 'syllabi' or the regular English 'syllabuses'.

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