SPELLING

Pronunciation (US):

(GB):

IPA (US):

 Dictionary entry overview: What does spelling mean? 

• SPELLING (noun)
  The noun SPELLING has 1 sense:

1. forming words with letters according to the principles underlying accepted usage

  Familiarity information: SPELLING used as a noun is very rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• SPELLING (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

Forming words with letters according to the principles underlying accepted usage

Classified under:

Nouns denoting communicative processes and contents

Hypernyms ("spelling" is a kind of...):

orthography; writing system (a method of representing the sounds of a language by written or printed symbols)

Meronyms (parts of "spelling"):

alphabetic character; letter; letter of the alphabet (the conventional characters of the alphabet used to represent speech)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "spelling"):

misspelling (a spelling that is incorrect)

Derivation:

spell (orally recite the letters of or give the spelling of)

spell (write or name the letters that comprise the conventionally accepted form of (a word or part of a word))

 Context examples 

These are represented by the letters A, C, G and T. Sometimes, changes occur in the ‘spelling’ of our DNA – an A becomes a G, for example.

(‘Fingerprint database’ could help scientists to identify new cancer culprits, University of Cambridge)

I took out Smollet's letter, and as I read it it seemed to me that the lesson of the spelling of the name of the court might guide me.

(Dracula, by Bram Stoker)

Spelling and punctuation have been largely brought into conformity with modern British usage.

(Northanger Abbey, by Jane Austen)

‘The original has no date, but is in the spelling of the middle of the seventeenth century,’ remarked Musgrave.

(The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

This little speech had cost the blunt bowman much pains and planning; but he might have spared his breath, for the lady was quite as much absorbed as her lord in the letter, which they held between them, a hand on either corner, spelling it out very slowly, with drawn brows and muttering lips.

(The White Company, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

Our genes provide the code for how our body functions and changes in the spelling – for example, a C in place of an A – can have subtle or sometimes dramatic changes on features such as hair colour and eye colour but also on a person’s weight.

(Slim people have a genetic advantage when it comes to maintaining their weight, University of Cambridge)

This inexplicable incident, this reversal of my previous experience, seemed, like the Babylonian finger on the wall, to be spelling out the letters of my judgment; and I began to reflect more seriously than ever before on the issues and possibilities of my double existence.

(The Strange Case Of Dr. Jekyll And Mr. Hyde, by Robert Louis Stevenson)

Laurie bit his lips, and turning a little from the pensive speaker, read the following document, with praiseworthy gravity, considering the spelling: I, Amy Curtis March, being in my sane mind, go give and bequeethe all my earthly property—viz. to wit:—namely

(Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott)

Mr. Smollet's spelling misled me, as I asked for Poter's Court instead of Potter's Court.

(Dracula, by Bram Stoker)

As cells divide and multiply, they make copies of their DNA, so any spelling mistakes will be reproduced.

(‘Fingerprint database’ could help scientists to identify new cancer culprits, University of Cambridge)