Height

This is one of the 117 mis-spellings listed as 'Common difficulties' in the section on 'Spelling' within 'Writing' in UEfAP.

The abstract noun height is spelled thus.

Some difficulties may be

• because it is derived from the adjective high, which has no '-e-'
• the combination of letters '-eigh-' is more usually the spelling of the /eɪ/ sound, as in eight (8) and weight.
• height was, until the eighteenth century, commonly written with what we now see as an extra '-h': heighth, using the common Germanic suffix '-th' to form a noun from an adjective, as in width (from 'wide') and breadth (from 'broad').