37 Latin Roots That Make Spelling Easier

One Root, Dozens of Words

Learn that "port" means carry and you can spell, and roughly define, portable, support, export and transportation, even ones you have never seen written down. That is what a root gives you: one short chunk of spelling that turns up again and again, always written the same way, always carrying the same meaning.

Latin supplies more of these chunks than any other language. About 3 in 10 of the roughly 26,000 different words in the SpellingKids word bank list Latin as their origin. French comes next at nearly 1 in 5, and much of that French was itself built from Latin. Greek, for comparison, accounts for about 1 in 8. In the US, the Common Core language standards ask students to use Greek and Latin roots as clues to meaning from Grade 4 onward. And in a spelling bee, where you can usually ask for a word's language of origin, "Latin" is often the most useful answer you can get.

The tables below group 37 roots by what they mean. Every example is a real word from the SpellingKids word bank, and the number after it is the earliest grade in which it appears, so you can see which roots a Grade 3 speller meets and which ones wait until Grade 7 or 8. Under each table is the spelling clue that group of roots gives you.

Roots for Seeing, Hearing, Speaking and Writing

Two of these roots change shape, and the change is the spelling clue. Voc becomes vok before a silent e (evoke, invoke, revoke), but the c comes back as soon as a suffix is added (evocative, irrevocable). Scrib becomes script before a t, which is why describe turns into description. The prefix there is de- (down), not dis-, so "discription" is never right. Spect and spic are two forms of one root, which makes suspicious and conspicuous close relatives of inspect.

Roots for Moving Things

Carrying, leading, throwing, sending, pulling and turning: these ten roots show up early, and several already appear in Grade 2 and 3 words. Watch what happens when a suffix is added. Mit doubles its t before -ed and -ing (admitted, committed) but becomes miss in the noun (admission, permission, omission). Curr keeps its double r in current, currency and curriculum, and occur doubles its r before a suffix (occurred, occurrence); when the root is spelled curs, as in cursive and excursion, there is only one r. Fer doubles only when the stress stays on it: preferred and referring, but preference and reference.

Roots for Building, Breaking and Shaping

Most of these roots come in two forms, and knowing both explains spellings that look inconsistent: frag and fract (fragile, fracture), flex and flect (flexible, reflect), tang and tact (tangible, contact), pend and pens (pendulum, suspension). The "take" root has three forms, and one of them settles a famous ie/ei question. Every word ending in -ceive is spelled ei, because the c-e-i comes straight from this root: receive, deceive, perceive, conceive. Each one also has a -cept- relative, such as reception, deceptive and perception. Pend explains a common ending mistake: it is independent and independence, never "independant," because the e belongs to the Latin form of the word.

Roots for Life, Light, Time and Place

Ann (year) is spelled ann at the start of a word (annual, anniversary) but enn after a prefix (biennial, perennial, centennial, millennium), and the double n stays both ways. Millennium also keeps the double l of mille, a thousand, which is why it has two l's and two n's. Two pairs here are easy to mix up. Biannual means twice a year, while biennial means every two years. And ped means foot in Latin (pedestrian, centipede), but the ped in pediatric comes from a Greek word for child. A few look-alikes are not relatives at all. Terrific and terror come from a different Latin root meaning to frighten, not from terr (earth). November comes from novem, nine, because it was the ninth month of the early Roman calendar, not from nov (new). And aqu becomes aque in aqueduct, not "aquaduct."

Roots for Belief and Goodness

Grateful is built on grat (thankful), the same root as gratitude and congratulate, which is why it is never spelled "greatful." Bene often joins other roots from this guide. Bene + dict (say) gives benediction, a "good saying." Bene + fact (do or make) gives benefactor, someone who does good. Bene + vol (wish) gives benevolent. Once you can split a long word into roots like this, spelling it becomes a matter of putting known pieces together.

Prefixes That Change Their Last Letter

Many doubled consonants come from a Latin prefix that changed its last letter to match the start of the root, which made the word easier to say. In- (not) becomes il- before l, so il + logical gives illogical, with both l's kept. The same thing happens with ir + regular and im + mobile. The clue to remember: if you can take off the prefix and still see the root, both letters stay. Ex- works the other way. It drops its x before most consonants (educate, emit, eject) but keeps it before vowels and before c, p and t, as in export, extract and expedition.

Latin Endings: -ible or -able, -sion or -tion

These two pairs of endings sound almost the same, but Latin gives a dependable rule of thumb for each. -ible usually follows a Latin root that is not a complete English word on its own: vis, aud, cred, tang. -able usually follows a word that already stands alone, as in predictable (6), acceptable (6) and breakable (8). There are exceptions, so treat it as a first guess to check, not a law.

For the noun endings, look at the verb. Verbs ending in -d or -de usually take -sion (divide becomes division, decide becomes decision). Verbs ending in -mit switch to -mission (admit becomes admission). Verbs ending in -ct or -pt keep their t and add -ion (predict becomes prediction, interrupt becomes interruption).

Latin Plurals That Don't Add -s

Some Latin nouns came into English with their Latin plurals attached, and those plurals follow a few patterns: -us becomes -i, -um becomes -a, -a becomes -ae, and -ix or -ex becomes -ices. The SpellingKids word bank lists these words in the singular, so the plural is the part to learn. For several of them, an ordinary English plural is also correct, and which one to use depends on the meaning.

Latin or Greek? Same Meaning, Different Spelling

English often has two roots for the same idea: one from Latin and one from Greek. Telling them apart is a spelling clue in itself. Greek roots bring ph, y, ch and silent letters with them (telephone, polygon, hydrogen), while Latin roots almost never do. So when a word about sound is spelled with ph, the root is Greek, and the Latin word for the same idea (audio, audience) is spelled exactly as it sounds.

Which Roots to Learn First

The "First appears" column above makes a natural order of study. Seven roots already show up in at least four different words by Grade 3: port, duc/duct, vid/vis, vert/vers, ven/vent, tract and mot/mov. A young speller who knows these seven can already break apart words like transportation, education, television and adventure.

A second group does not appear in a single word until Grade 4 or later: mit/miss, ann/enn, tang/tact, nov, terr and bene. These belong to the longer, more abstract vocabulary of the middle grades, such as permission, perennial, tangible and benevolent, and they are worth studying once the first group feels automatic. Everything else in the tables sits in between. Most of those roots have one or two early words and many more from Grade 6 up.

Quick Quiz: Let the Root Decide

Each question has one correct spelling. Use the root to decide, then check the answers in the next section.

1. (a) Greatful (b) Grateful (c) Gratefull

2. (a) Millennium (b) Millenium (c) Milennium

3. (a) Aquaduct (b) Acqueduct (c) Aqueduct

4. (a) Irregular (b) Iregular (c) Irreguler

5. (a) Discription (b) Description (c) Descripsion

6. (a) Admittion (b) Admision (c) Admission

7. (a) Visable (b) Visible (c) Visibel

8. (a) Occurence (b) Ocurrence (c) Occurrence

9. (a) Perennial (b) Perenial (c) Perrenial

10. (a) Independant (b) Independent (c) Indipendent

Quiz Answers

1 (b) Grateful: grat, thankful. · 2 (a) Millennium: mille + enn, two l's and two n's. · 3 (c) Aqueduct: aqu becomes aque. · 4 (a) Irregular: in- becomes ir- before r. · 5 (b) Description: de- + script. · 6 (c) Admission: mit becomes miss. · 7 (b) Visible: vis is not a word on its own, so -ible. · 8 (c) Occurrence: double r from curr. · 9 (a) Perennial: per + enn, one r and two n's. · 10 (b) Independent: the Latin form ends in -ent.

Look at what the right answers have in common. Not one of them had to be memorised as a random string of letters. Each spelling follows from a root, a prefix or an ending covered on this page.

A Ten-Minute Root Routine

Roots stick best in short, regular sessions rather than one long read. Pick one root a day, starting with the seven early roots above. Read its example words aloud and mark the root inside each one. Then cover the list and write the words from memory. After that, open the flashcards for your grade and look for that root in new words. Spotting it in a word you have not studied yet is the moment the root starts doing the work for you.

On competition day, this habit pays off. When a word is unfamiliar, ask for the language of origin and the definition. If the answer is Latin, and the definition mentions carrying, seeing, writing or breaking, you already know a piece of the spelling before you say the first letter.