CHAPTER 43

Using ant, ent, ance, ence, ense

Hundreds of words end in ant or ent, but, alas, time and usage have created such a tangle that there are

few clear rules. This group of words contains nouns, adjectives, and even some verbs. The problem can
be traced all the way back to the roots of many of these words and involves certain Latin conjugations.
Obviously, this is no help to the modern student, and so the best we can do is list a few basic rules and a
number of guidelines..
The most common ending is ent, with roughly seventy-five percent of the words in this group. But there
are so many words involved that a large number end in ant. Generally speaking, most of the words that
end in ant are nouns, whereas most of the words ending in ent are adjectives. This, again alas, is by no
means a general rule.

Spelling rule #1: After a hard c or a hard g, the suffix will be ant:

(^) Spelling rule #2: After a soft c or a soft g, the suffix will be ent:
(^) Spelling rule #3: There must be continuity:
(^) Generally, the suffix ent indicates a quality or a characteristic. The word will probably be an
adjective:
(^) Generally, the suffix ant indicates a person or thing that does something. The word will probably be a
noun:
(^) A great number of words that end in ent or ant do not fit into either category, however, because the
ending does not form a suffix:
(^) Just to add to the confusion, we have a group of words that end in ense:
(^) What is fascinating about this group of ense words is that the British spell some of them just the
opposite way: