List of commonly misused English words

This is a list of English words which are commonly misused. It is meant to include only words whose misuse is deprecated by most usage writers, editors, and other professional linguists of Standard English. It is possible that some of the meanings marked non-standard may pass into Standard English in the future, but at this time all of the following Non-standard phrases are likely to be marked as incorrect by English teachers or changed by editors if used in a work submitted for publication. Some of the examples are homonyms or pairs of similarly spelled words which are often confused.

S to T

sensual and sensuous. Both words mean, "to do with the senses". Sensual is more often applied to a pleasure or experience or to a person's character; sensuous to someone or something of enticing appearance.
- Standard: Don Juan is the most sensual character in fiction.
- Standard: Ascetics believe in avoiding all sensual pleasures.
- Standard: Marilyn Monroe looks extremely sensuous in this film clip.

set and sit. When used as a verb, to set means "to place" or "to adjust to a value", whereas to sit means, "to be seated".
- Standard: Set the pot upon the stove.
- Standard: Set the temperature-control to 100 °C.
- Non-standard: Set down over there.
- Non-standard: Sit the pot on the stove.
- Standard: Sit on the chair.

shrink and shirk. To shirk means "to consistently avoid", "to neglect", "to be too afraid to engage". To shrink means "to contract", "to become physically smaller in size"; also, to shrink away means, "to suddenly jerk away from something in horror". However, to shrink from may also mean, "to hesitate or show reluctance toward".
- Standard: I will not shirk discussion.
- Standard: I will not shrink from discussion.
- Standard: She shrank away from me.
- Non-standard: I will not shrink discussion.
- Non-standard: I will not shirk from discussion.

sight, site, and cite. A sight is something seen; a site is a place. To cite is to quote or list as a source.
- Standard: You are a sight for sore eyes.
- Standard: I found a list of the sights of Rome on a tourist site.
- Standard: Please cite the sources you used in your essay.
- Standard: You must travel to the site of the dig to see the dinosaur bones.
- Standard: It is necessary to have line-of-sight if you want to use semaphore.
- Non-standard: One must be careful on a construction sight.
- Non-standard: I will site the book in which I saw the statistics.
- Non-standard: I could not fire because I did not have line-of-site to the target.

temblor and trembler. A temblor is an earthquake. A trembler is something that trembles.

than and then. Than is a grammatical particle and preposition associated with comparatives, whereas then is an adverb and a noun. In certain dialects, the two words are usually homophones because they are function words with reduced vowels, and this may cause speakers to confuse them.
- Standard: I like pizza more than lasagne.
- Standard: We ate dinner, then went to the movies.
- Non-standard: You are a better person then I am.

there, their, they're, and there're. There refers to the location of something. Their means "belonging to them". They're is a contraction of "They are". There're is a contraction of "there are".^{[citation needed]}
- Standard: There're five of them and they're all coming to the restaurant for their dinner; we will meet them there.

there's, where's, etc. A common spoken mistake is using a singular contraction when it should be plural in words like there's and where's. This stems from the fact that there're and where're are more difficult to enunciate and are often avoided for that reason in colloquial speech.
- Non-standard: Where's the cars? (Should be Where're)
- Non-standard: There's many types of cars. (Should be There're)

to, too. Too means "in excess" or "also". To is a preposition or is a part of a verb in the infinitive. At the end of a sentence to may also refer to a dropped verb in the infinitive.

trimester. A trimester is a period of three months. Because it is most commonly used in conjunction with a nine-month academic year or a nine-month term of human pregnancy, it is sometimes wrongly assumed that trimester is simply a synonym for one third.
- Standard: One calendar year contains four trimesters.
- Non-standard: Without further delay, then, comes ESPN.com's annual (and overdue) First Trimester Report, ushering folks back to the office by taking stock of the season's opening third: