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Why is "exhorbitant" a common mis-spelling of "exorbitant"?

English Language & Usage Asked by Tom Auger on January 8, 2021

I discovered that my natural (British English) spelling of “exorbitant” added an “h”, and upon looking it up on oxforddictionaries.com discovered that it is a common mis-spelling.

Can you help me unpack why I would have thought that the non-obvious spelling was correct? Are there a number of other words that exhibit that pattern (wow, “exhibit” is probably such a word…)? Apparently it’s not just me, given the Oxford citation.

2 Answers

The answer to why it's such a commonly misspelled word is likely due to the fact that it's been being misspelled ever since its inception as a word.

etymonline shows it originating in the mid-15th century, but there are books that have the misspelled version dating all the way from the 16th century, such as in this French book from 1581:

Legende de Domp Claude de Guyse, abbé de Cluny: contenant ses faits et ...

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or from this Scottish book from 1585-1592, which has three instances of the misspelling, so you know it's not just a typo:

Scotland. Privy Council - 1585

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Google Books shows the misspelling thriving from the 18th century-on:

An interesting thing that can be picked up from the sources is that in the mid-18th century the misspelling made its appearance in many French texts, and an Ngram analysis of French documents confirms this:

Google Ngrams French

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Now is this a case of the British misspelling marking its influence on French soil, or was the misspelling French in origin all along? I doubt the latter, but maybe someone else can shed some light. French was the lingua franca during the 17th century so its possible.


There are various English words that derive from Latin words beginning with "exh-":

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exhonorate is another common misspelling of exonerate, but that has a Latin root beginning with "exh", unlike "exorbitant" and "exonerate".

https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/exhonorate

My guess after all this evidence is that the medieval Brits thought that "exorbitant's" Latin roots had an 'h' in them, which made it a common misspelling at the time, and that misspelling survived through the ages. Truly a misspelling for the ages.


Correct answer by user180089 on January 8, 2021

It is not a misspelling; rather, it is a dispute that has survived, unless, of course, you believe that language is a settled matter, which it verifiably is not. Spend some time studying etymology and you will start to see that many words are formed from roots that are disputed and disputable. Historic spellings are not misspellings; they were the accepted spellings, at least in some quarters, during the times in which they were practiced. In fact, if you look at the American Heritage Dictionary of 30 years ago, you will find ample evidence of changes in the reported etymology from that very recent time to this.

Answered by Laura Lee on January 8, 2021

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