How to spell useful

hear ituse·ful/'jusfəl/adjectiveLong vowels

What it means: Helpful or serving a good purpose.

In a sentence: A flashlight can be very useful at night.

The part people get wrong

Watch for an unstressed vowel that is hard to hear. Often misspelled as usefull or usful.

Same family: use, usefully, usefulness, useless, usable. If you can spell one, the shared part carries to the others.

Where it comes from: Useful comes from the verb 'use' plus the suffix '-ful', which means 'full of' or 'having.' The word 'use' itself comes from Old French 'user' and Latin 'uti,' meaning 'to employ or make use of.'

Patterns it uses: The unstressed vowel (schwa)

Try spelling it

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