"Definitely", How Shall I Spell Thee?



Let me count the ways.

I used to work as a content moderator for a company that screened customer reviews for all sorts of companies before they got posted online. I cannot begin to explain all the different spellings I saw for one word: definitely.

1.    definetly

2.    definately

3.    defiantly (I see this one a lot even though it's a completely different word.)

4.    definitly (Missing "e" could just be a typo.)

5.    defenatly (That's a new one on me.)

6.    definetely (An extra "e" never hurts. Might have been stolen from #4.)

7.    deffintaley (First time seen with "ff", but the writer’s fingers seem to be all confused.)

8.    defetelly (Must have taken some imagination to come up with that spelling.)

9.    deffinetly (A lot closer to reality than #7.)

10.  defenitly (Obviously a fan of "Hooked on Phonics".)

11.  definantly (Adam Ant?)

12.  deffinately (There's the double “f” again.)

13.  definotely (Is this an honest typo since "i" and "o" are side by side on the keyboard?)

14.  defently (User must have forgotten the "i" after the "n".) 😕

15.  deffinatelly (When in doubt, doubble a ffeww letterss unnecessarily.)

16.  deffenetly (Why does English even have an "i" when you can spell the schwa sound
  with an "e"?)

17.  defitnally (The variety seems endless.)

18.  diffinately (My God, what where they thinking?)

19.  diffently (WTF??)

20.  devinetely (German phonetics?)

21.  defianatly

22.  definatley (a modified version of #2?)


It’s spelled d-e-f-i-n-i-t-e-l-y. There is the prefix de. There is the suffix ly. In between, you have the word finite: de-finite-ly. It’s not that stinking hard! 

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