Found 114 articles starting with B:

bachelor - correct spelling

bachelor noun
Example: He is the world’s most eligible bachelor....

Back to Our Robin Cook Examples

So why are the examples at the beginning of this chapter incorrect?Here are the examples from the best-selling Toxin: 1. Kelly regarded Tracy in an attempt to interpret her comment. Kelly couldn’t qui...

Backup and Back up? What’s the Difference?

We all use the word Backup. Or is it Back Up? ...

bad, badly

Bad ordinarily acts as an adjective, badly as an adverb
. Bad normally describes how things a...

Badge vs. Badger

A small sign with a picture, name, or message on it that you pin to your clothes.A mammal with a gray body and a black and white head that lives in a burrow and comes out at night to eat.To keep asking someon...

Bag vs. Baggage

A usually flexible container for carrying things.Travelers’ suitcases, bags, and trunks....

Bagel vs. Doughnut

A round, chewy roll with a hole in the middle.A cake fried in fat....

Baggy vs. Bagpipes

Hanging in loose folds, as in baggy shorts.A musical instrument....

Bait vs. Bate: Do You Know the Difference?

You know the expression, “…with bated/baited breath…” What do you think? Is it spelled "bai...

Baking Powder vs. Baking Soda

A white powder used in baking to make dough or batter rise.A white powder used to make dough rise or to make an upset stomach....

balance - correct spelling

balance noun and verb
Example: The balance in the account was more than enough. noun
Example:...

Bale vs. Bail

Content about Bale vs. Bail has been temporarily removed......

Ball vs. Bawl

A round object used in games.Somehting made into a round shape, as in a ball of wool.A formal party where people dance.In baseball, a pitch that a batter doesn’t swing at and that doesn’t cross home plate between...

balloon - correct spelling

balloon noun and verb
Example: The little girl lost her balloon. noun
Example: The f...

Balmy vs. Barmy

Barmy and balmy sound exactly alike, and with the exception of one word (r in barmy and l in balmy) their spellings are very much similar too. The meanings of both the words however...

banal - vocabulary

banal - adjective
Drearily commonplace, hackneyed, trite, lacking in originality. If you killed off Lizzie McGuire's entire family and sent her to live with an evil stepmother and two...

barbecue - correct spelling

barbecue noun and verb
Sometimes spelled barbeque.Example: We enjoyed the North Carolina barbecue. ...

Barbeque vs. Barbecue

People love "barbecue time", as they usually associate it with a free day spent with friends, chatting and feeling good outdoors. But taking a closer look at its name, this word started to create confusion within the last years.You might have...

Bare vs. Bear

Wearing no clothes or not covered.Empty.To uncover or reveal something.Plain and simple.To support or carry something.When a tree or plant bears fruit, flowers, or leaves, it ...

bargain - correct spelling

bargain noun and verb
Example: We found a bargain at the yard sale. noun
Example: Yo...

Base vs. Baseball

The lowest part of something or the part that it stands on, as in the base of a lamp.To use something as the starting point for something else.The place from which a business, an army, etc., is controlled, as in a base of o...

Base vs. Bass

Even though they are correctly pronounced differently, the fact that “base” and “bass” have quite similar spellings often determines some English users to pronounce them almost identically and, consequently, to confound them and use them one instead ...

basic - correct spelling

basic adjective and noun (basics)Example: Sugar is the basic ingredient. adjective...

basically - correct spelling

basically adverb
Grammar.com's section on the Parts of Speech discusses the demise of -ly adverbs. Click here for that dis...

Basket vs. Basketball

A container, often with handles, amde of cane, wire, etc.A game played by two teams of five players each that try to score points by throwing a ball through a high net at the end of a court.The large, round b...

Bath vs. Bathe

The act of washing something in water.The water used in bathing, as in a warm bath.A bathroom.To take a bath.To give someone a bath, as in to bathe a baby.To go swimming....

Bathe vs. Bath

Content about Bathe vs. Bath has been temporarily removed......

Bathing Suit vs. Bathrobe

A piece of clothing that people wear to go swimming; a swimsuit.A long, loose piece of clothing that people wear after bathing or while relaxing....

Bathroom vs. Rest Room

A room that contains a sink and a toilet and often a bathtub or a shower.A bathroom, especially in a public building....

Batter vs. Battery

To injure someone by hitting him or her over and over.A mixture consisting mainly of milk, eggs, and flour used to make cakes or other baked goods or used to coat food that you fry.The player whose turn it is to bat in base...

Be vs. Bee

To exist.To happen.To take up space.To come or go.To stay or continue.Be can connect the subject of a sentence to a noun, adjective, or pronoun.Be can support the main verb in a s...

Beach vs. Beech

A strip of sand or pebbles where land meets water.A tree with smooth, gray bark and small nuts that are eaten as food....

Bear vs. Bare

They may be pronounced just the same, but “bear” and “bare” can definitely not be confused in an expression. They represent completely different things and should never be misspelled.Both words have double functions, both working as verbs and...

beautiful - correct spelling

beautiful adjective
Example: We enjoyed the beautiful sunset....

because - correct spelling

because subordinating conjunction
Note: Forget your teacher’s rule about not starting a sentence with Because. Emily Dickinson’s poem Death begins: “Because I...

because, as, since, for

See as, because, since, for
....

become - correct spelling

become verb
Example: He will become annoyed with his situation rather quickly....

before - correct spelling

before preposition, subordinating conjunction, and adverb
Example: He fell asleep bef...

beggar - correct spelling

beggar noun and verb
Example: He gave a dollar to the beggar. noun
Example: The war ...

beginning - correct spelling

beginning noun, adjective, and verb (present participle of the verb begin)Example: In the ...

Behavior vs. Behaviour

Behavior/Behaviour is one of many words that are spelled differently in American English and UK English. It is part of a pattern that extends across the majority of words with the same ending, such as color/colour, harbor/harbour...

being - correct spelling

being noun and verb (present participle of the verb to be
)Example: The movie character was a rather exotic ...

belie - vocabulary

belie - verb
To misrepresent, to show to be false; to refute, disprove, gainsay. Often used to show an action directly contrary to the true situation, as in His shaking hands belied his calm smile and...

belief - correct spelling

belief noun
Example: This is my belief....

believable - correct spelling

believable adjective
Not believeable.Example: The plot, at least, was believable....

believe - correct spelling

believe verb
Example: He wants to believe in her....

Bellow vs. Below

How often do you find yourself wondering whether you should spell "below" or "bellow" while writing something? If you have seen this word spelled in both forms, chances are you got confused and you are not sure anymore about which one is correct....

bemoan - vocabulary

bemoan - verb
To lament; to express grief or distress over; to regard with disapproval or regret. Back in May, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton publicly admonished young folks for thinking of w...

beneficial - correct spelling

beneficial adjective
Example: The health food provides many beneficial effects....

benefit - correct spelling

benefit noun and verb
Example: This benefit attracted the new recruits. noun
Example...

benefited - correct spelling

benefited verb (past tense and past participle of the verb benefit)Also spelled benefitted.Example: The slush fun...

Benefitted vs. Benefited

The basic rule when building the past-tense form of a regular verb is to add "-ed". A special rule, anyway, is used when we're talking about a monosyllabic verb that ends in this pattern: consonant-vowel-consonant. In this specific case, doubling the...

Berry vs. Bury

People feel that the English language is tricky and confusing, but it doesn't necessarily need to be. There are many words in the English dictionary that have the same pronunciation but different spellings. We refer to them as homophones. They’re t...

beset - vocabulary

beset - verb
To attack on all sides, to assail, to harass, as in beset by financial difficulties; to surround or hem in, as in the little town beset on all sides with housing developments...

Beside vs. Besides

Beside Beside is a preposition of place. It means ‘next to’. The word has originated from the old English adverb ‘be sidan’ ...

besides, beside

As prepositions, these two are commonly interchanged, but their meanings do differ, according to traditionalists.Besides means “other than” or “in addition to” while ...

between - correct spelling

between preposition
Note: When you use a personal pronoun with between, you must use the objective case
.Grammar...

Biannual vs. Biennial

Biannual and biennial are treated as if they are interchangeable or they mean the same. Some people who know the difference but still get confuse about wh...

bicycle - correct spelling

bicycle noun
Example: The little girl loved her new bicycle....

Bid vs. Bide

To offer a certain amount of money for something, as at an auction.To order someone to do something.To say, as in to bid someone hello.An attempt to do or win something.To wait for the r...

bight - correct spelling

bight noun (a loop in a rope, or a curve in a coastline)Not bite
.Note: When you use your teeth, you ...

bilateral - vocabulary

bilateral - adjective
Pertaining to two sides, parties, or factions, as in a bilateral treaty. In law, a bilateral contract binds two parties to reciprocal duties. R...

Bind vs. Bound vs. Bounded

Bind – to bind is to fasten objects together tightly. For example, glue is a binding material that binds paper with another surface, water binds the flour, a common...

Binging vs. Bingeing

Gerund – or present participle – forms of verbs can easily become confusing while adding the suffix “-ing”. Some word structures require to drop the last vowel before adding the suffix, whereas others don’t. This dilemma also occurs for the verb “...

biscuit - correct spelling

biscuit noun
Example: My grandmother made the world’s best biscuit....

bite - correct spelling

bite verb and noun
Not bight
.Example: A child might bite th...

blaspheme - vocabulary

blaspheme - verb
To speak irreverently of God or sacred things or beliefs; to speak evil of someone or something. Used as either a transitive verb (with ...

Blatant vs. Flagrant

Content about Blatant vs. Flagrant has been temporarily removed......

Blockquote Test Page

Only Blockquote Lorem Ipsum is simply dummy text of the printing and typesetting industry. Lorem Ipsum has been the industry's standard dummy text ever since the 1500s, when an unknown printer took a galley of type and sc...

board - correct spelling

board noun and verb
Example: Send the report to the board of directors. noun
Example: ...

Board vs. Bored

Homophones (literally "same sound") are usually defined as words that share the same pronunciation, regardless of how they are spelled. The words board, bored sound the same ...

boorish - vocabulary

boorish - adjective
Like a boor, insensitive, crude; without good manners, as in His boorish behavior offended everyone at the party. Today’s New York Times features...

bored - correct spelling

bored adjective and verb (past tense and past participle of the verb bore)Example: She is ...

Born in vs. Born at

In English, prepositions such as "at" and "in" are used to convey different types of information about time and place. When referring to a person's birthplace, "born at" and "born in" are two common expressions used to convey information about the sp...

Born vs. Borne

An African-born ...

borrow - correct spelling

borrow verb
Example: Do you want to borrow some money?...

Bosphorus vs. Bosporus

Both Bosporus and Bosphorus are acceptable spellings for the narrow, natural strait and internationally significant waterway located in northwestern Turkey....

bottle - correct spelling

bottle noun, verb, and phrasal verb (bottle up)Example: Give the baby her bottle. ...

bottom - correct spelling

bottom noun, verb, and adjective
Example: We’ve reached the bottom of the list. noun...

bough - correct spelling

bough noun
Example: The bird sat in the bough of the tree....

bought - correct spelling

bought verb (past tense and past participle of the verb buy)Grammar.com’s section on Problem Words discusses bought and brought. ...

boundaries - correct spelling

boundariesnoun (plural of the noun boundary)Example: The land seemed to have no boundaries....

boundary - correct spelling

boundary noun
Example: The line of trees formed the boundary of the property....

Braces

Punctuation is the basic element of English grammar and without it a sentence is not only incomplete but als...

Brackets

...

brake - correct spelling

brake noun and verb
Example: She hit the brake to avoid the collision. noun
Example: ...

Brake vs. Break

English language is filled with difficult and puzzling type of words. One of the type of words is homophones that are pronounced the same way but mean and spell differently. The words we are discussing today are one of the common pairs of homophones;...

Brake vs. Break

A device to slow down or stop a vehicle.To slow down or stop by using a brake.To damage something so that it's in pieces or no longer works.A rest from working or studying.To stop, as in...

breadth - correct spelling

breadthnoun
Example: Her breadth of knowledge impressed us....

breath - correct spelling

breathnoun
Note: The verb form is breathe
.Grammar.com’s section on Problem Words discusses breath and b...

Breath vs. Breathe

Content about Breath vs. Breathe has been temporarily removed......

Breath vs. Breathe

The air that you take into your lungs and breathe out again.If you are out of breath, you have difficulty breathing.When you say something under your breath, you say it very quietly.To take air in ...

breath, breathe

Breathe (pronounced with a long “e”) is a verb, and breath (short “e”) is a noun
.Example: He tried to tak...

breathe - correct spelling

breatheverb
Not breath (which is the noun form).Grammar.com’s section on Problem Words discusses breath an...

brilliant - correct spelling

brilliantadjective
Example: Einstein was a brilliant scientist....

bring, take

Note: You’ll find an in-depth discussion in the Common Grammatical Mistakes section of Grammar.com. Click here for the beginning of that discussion....

British Approach to Group Nouns

As an interesting aside, the British always use plural verbs with collective nouns. On May 15, 2001, I was watching a BBC-produced documentary about a blues musician who made a comeback. Describing the musician’s band, the narrator said: ...

Broach vs. Brooch

She sat on the c...

broccoli - correct spelling

broccolinoun
Not brocolli.Example: Apparently, the president likes broccoli and cabbage....

Brooch vs. Broach

If you look up “brooch” and “broach” on google translate, you’ll most probably get the same result, as if they would mean the same. It’s not the first error of this kind that appears this way, and this is a good reason why you should first check your...

brought - correct spelling

broughtverb (past tense and past participle of the verb bring)Note: For a discussion of the differences between bring...

brought, bought

Brought is the past tense and past participle of bring, and bought is the past tense an...

Build Your Vocabulary

In this section, we have provided short discussions of 406 words. In each, we define the word and then provide an example of its use by top writers in literature or the media.This list will especially help young people studying for college-en...

building - correct spelling

buildingnoun and verb (present participle of the verb build)Example: The building...

bulletin - correct spelling

bulletin noun
Example: The head of the department issued a new bulletin....

bureau - correct spelling

bureaunoun (capitalize when naming a specific agency, as in "Federal Bureau of Investigation")Example: The police officer was investigated by the ...

burial - correct spelling

burialnoun
Example: The first biblical account of a burial is that of Sarah....

buried - correct spelling

buriedverb (past tense and past participle of the verb bury)Example: The general was ...

bury - correct spelling

buryverb
Example: “I come to bury Caesar, not to praise him.”Example: Don’t ...

Bus vs. Buss

Bus vs. Buss"Bus" is one of the first English words people learn, in the "means of transport" chapter, from the...

bushes - correct spelling

bushesnoun (plural of the noun bush), verb (present tense, third-person singular of the verb bush), and ...

business - correct spelling

businessnoun
Example: Frankly, it’s none of your business.Example: He started a successful ...

but

Don’t hesitate to start a sentence with But. It’s a coordinating conjunction, and great writers have been starting sentences with conjunctions for hun...

byte - correct spelling

bytenoun
Note: Werner Buchholz coined this term in 1956 when he participated in the early design of the IBM Stretch computer. It mutated from the word bite to avoid any confusion w...

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