-ant or -ent

-ant and -ent are the same sound when the syllable is unstressed. Which one a word takes is usually learned with the word, and its -ance or -ence relative keeps the same vowel (confident, confidence).

Look for the -ance or -ence noun, or the -ancy or -ency one, and carry its vowel back: dominant, dominance; pregnant, pregnancy; persistent, persistence; emergent, emergency.

A soft C or G before the ending usually takes -ent (innocent, intelligent, urgent), and a hard one -ant (elegant, significant, arrogant).

A relative only helps if you know it, and many words are met alone. Those endings are learned with the word.

One pair is a matter of usage rather than sound. British spelling uses dependant for the person who depends on someone and dependent for the adjective; American spelling tends to use dependent for both.

Using a word's relatives to settle its ending is reasoning from structure, which the research finds teachable. That research is on how people learn to spell.

• Double letters
• Unstressed vowels
• Silent letters
• Same sound, different letters
• Silent E
• I before E
• -able or -ible
• -ance or -ence
• -tion or -sion
• -ary, -ery or -ory
• -cede, -ceed or -sede

All spelling traps and origins