Notorious Confusables:
Alphabetized List

Select from the alphabetized list at the right
or from the RANDOM CONFUSABLE* button below.


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The Notorious Confusables also exist as two extensive lists:
Part One: Ability/Capacity through Indeterminable/Indeterminate
Part Two: Indict/Indite through Your/You're.
The quizzes for the Notorious Confusables are listed at the end of Part Two and in the QUIZ LIST.

Once a page for a Notorious Confusable opens, passing the mouse-arrow over a highlighted word will cause a brief definition of that word to appear in the status-line of your browser (at the bottom of the browser window). Try to determine the definition from the context first. Most definitions are based on those found in the Merriam Webster's WWWebster Dictionary (based on Merriam-Webster's Collegiate® Dictionary, Tenth Edition and used with permission of Merriam Webster, Inc.) but are by no means complete.

Some sentences are accompanied by recordings. Click on the speaker icon to hear the recording. This works best, of course, with a fast connection and if your browser and computer are configured to play .au files. If you're in a lab environment, please wear headphones to avoid annoying others.

*The Random Confusable button is purely random in the sense that it throws a confusable, once selected, back into the pile of selectable items. Therefore, the more you click on it, the more likely you are to revisit a page before you see a new page. The chances of seeing all 231 items without seeing a page twice are almost infinitely against you. In fact, it would be an interesting math question: how many times would you have to click on the Random Confusables button before you saw all 231 items?

Guide to Grammar and Writing