Spelling.School · How to spell

How to spell written

Written is spelled W-R-I-T-T-E-N. Write drops its E and the T doubles after the short I: writ-ten.

hear itwrit·ten/'rɪtən/verbSilent and tricky

What it means: Formed letters or words on a surface.

In a sentence: She has written a lovely story about a magical cat.

The part people get wrong

Watch for double t.

Same family: writer, writing, rewritten, handwritten. If you can spell one, the shared part carries to the others.

Where it comes from: Written comes from Old English *writen*, the past participle of *writan*, meaning ‘to write, draw, inscribe.’ The double “t” in written shows an older sound change in English where some verbs doubled a consonant in their past forms, a pattern still seen in words like ‘bitten’ and ‘sitten’ (now ‘sat’).

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