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Adding -er/-est | Adding -ing/-ed | Adding -ly | Adding -s
-ible or -able | -ie- or -ei- | English & American English

-ie- or -ei-

Sometimes it is difficult to remember whether a word is spelled with -ie- or -ei-. There is a very simple rule about this:

  • I before E
    Except after C
Rule Examples
I before E achieve, believe, brief, chief, friend, grief, hygiene, patience, pierce, priest, thief
Except after C ceiling, conceit, conceive, deceit, deceive, perceive, receipt, receive

Of course, there are some exceptions to this rule.

1. When the sound rhymes with "may", the spelling is -ei-:

  • beige, feint, freight, inveigle, neighbour, sleigh, vein, weigh, weight

2. Here are a few more common exceptions:

  • either, neither, caffeine, codeine, counterfeit, foreign, forfeit, height, leisure, protein, their, weird, seize, seizure