Separate vs. Seperate – What’s the Difference?

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Candace Osmond

Candace Osmond studied Advanced Writing & Editing Essentials at MHC. She’s been an International and USA TODAY Bestselling Author for over a decade. And she’s worked as an Editor for several mid-sized publications. Candace has a keen eye for content editing and a high degree of expertise in Fiction.

Many people need clarification on separate and seperate. One of them is a misspelling.

I’ll take a look at the difference between separate and seperate and break it down for you. I also provided its meaning as an adjective, verb, and noun and examples of how to use them in a sentence.

Separate vs. Seperate

httpsgrammarist.comspellingseparate vs seperate

The right spelling of the verb form that means to cause to move or be apart is separate. Seperate is a misspelling. It’s not an alternative or incorrect spelling or a British version of separate.

Separate can also be an adjective meaning forming or viewed as a unit apart.

Separate is also a noun that refers to individual clothing items, such as skirts, jackets, or pants, suitable for wearing in different combinations.

This Ngram shows the usage of separate and seperate. Notice how separate is more widely used than separate.

Separate vs. Seperate Ngram
Seperate and separate usage trend.

Examples of Separate in a Sentence

  • I’m sorry, girls. I have to separate you in class because you just talk too much while I’m teaching.
  • Don’t forget to separate your colors from whites before doing laundry.
  • My work life is totally separate from my social life, and I want to keep it that way.
  • I like to organize my bookshelves and separate all my books by genre.
  • No, no! Like I said before, filing your taxes is separate from filing for HST when you’re a small business or self-employed person.

Separation vs. Seperation

The correct spelling of the noun form of separate is separation instead of seperation. This noun means the action or state of moving or being moved apart. Seperation is not an alternative spelling or a British version of the American spelling.

Separate and Separation Pronunciation

The correct pronunciation of separation is seh-pr-ay-shn. Separate as a noun/adjective is pronounced as seh-prit, whereas the verb form is pronounced as seh-par-ate

Examples of Separation in a Sentence

  • The separation from my husband has been really hard on the kids, so I’m trying to keep things together as best I can.
  • The separation of my daughter and her toxic boyfriend has been the best thing for her; we’ve already seen a massive improvement in her behavior.
  • Every article of clothing that gets donated to our center is sent to a separation facility to be cleaned and processed into gender and size.

Separate and Separation are Correct

I hope this guide and grammar tips clarified the correct spelling between separate vs. seperate. Remember that the correct middle letter is A, hence separate. The same is true for separation. Using one incorrectly isn’t a spelling error, just an error in wordage. What other English words do you find confusing?