Vocabulary

When native speakers of English talk about the differences between American and British English, it is usually the field of vocabulary which they have foremost in their minds. What follows is an alphabetical list of words in American English with their British equivalents. Alphabetization, of course, conceals the fact that there are certain semantic fields (e.g. automobiles and items of clothing) where many words differ; however, in many cases, rather than semantic patterns, we simply find individual differences of vocabulary. It should be noted that some words (e.g. mad, chips, mean) occur in both of the columns below. This is because such words are very common in both forms of English, but are used with different meanings or nuances. It should also be noted that in many cases where differences of vocabulary have been cited in the past, it is more a question of degree than difference. In the case of a pair of words such as store/shop, for example, while it is true to say that there is a marked preference in the States for the former and in Britain for the latter, in fact both words are regularly used in both countries. In the list that follows, one hundred typically American English words are given in the left-hand column, with their British English equivalents in the right-hand column.