How to spell consensus

Same sound, different letters

The word consensus has one C, at the start, and three Ss; the misspelling concensus adds a second C. That C is borrowed from census, and in con-sen-sus every later S sound is spelled with an S.

That spelling matches the sound exactly, which is why it looked right. English keeps letters long after the sound has moved on, so the conventional spelling is often the one that looks least like it sounds.

n. general agreement

• absence
• controversy
• criticize
• ecstasy
• exacerbate
• idiosyncrasy
• license
• malicious
• peripheral
• tenacious