Is it spelled ‘Jewellery’ or ‘Jewelry’?

by Kate Reid
January 15, 2019 / Engagement Rings

We all know the feeling of spelling a word and being slightly in doubt as to whether our spelling is correct. In the case of ‘jewellery’ or ‘jewelry’, you are certainly forgiven if you have ever been slightly confused!

The most commonly used variations of this noun, meaning precious items of personal decoration, are jewellery and jewelry.

The correct spelling in Australia and Britain is ‘jewellery’.

In American English, the correct spelling is ‘jewelry’. Canadian English, on the other hand, uses both variations, with the most popular being ‘jewellery’.

Considering these differences, the singular noun jewel is spelled this way across all English dialects.

The spelling difference extends to jeweler (American English) and jeweller (British and Australian English), as well as to other derivatives such as jeweled–jewelled and jeweling—jewelling. But jewel (not jewell) is the standard spelling in all varieties of English.
~https://grammarist.com/spelling/jewelry-jewellery/

Comments

Marshall says:

December 17, 2021 at 7:11 am

What I find awkward is even those who spell the word as jewellery pronounce it as jewelry
- Kate Reid says:
  
  December 17, 2021 at 8:54 am
  
  Haha, yes! You’re so right.
Rigo says:

December 25, 2021 at 6:36 pm

They (Brits and Aussies,) use compound words to make one word. Where Jewel + lery = Jewellery, and we (US bound) use Jewelry…

Special note on pronunciation; Brits and Aussies do say Jewel-lery… We, on the other hand, say it fast as Jew-lery.
D. Rincon says:

October 14, 2022 at 1:04 pm

Jewelry is pronounced (or should be) jewel-ry in the US…just like it is spelled. The British spelling is jewellery and the pronunciation is jewel-lery, also like it is spelled.
Vic says:

February 3, 2023 at 10:57 am

The reason there are less letters is because printing papers used to be charged by the letter. So in America in the newspaper and things, unnecessary letters would be removed. For example colour became color. And in Canada we don’t use the spelling “jewelry” just like we don’t use “color”.