How to spell license

Same sound, different letters

The word license puts the C first and the S second, and the misspelling lisence swaps them. Both letters make the same S sound here, so the ear cannot tell which comes where.

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. a permit from an authority

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