Word.ws English Dictionary

respell

respell verb: to spell again.

Verb

respell (third-person singular simple present respells, present participle respelling, simple past and past participle respelled or respelt)

  1. (transitive) To spell again.
    • A child is learning to spell, but no special pains are taken to make him respell, and respell, until spelled aright, every misspelled word.1864, Henry Barnard, editor, The American Journal of Education, volume 14, Hartford: H. Barnard, page 293
    1. (transitive) To spell differently, especially according to pronunciation, or by a phonetic system.
      • It may be hardly necessary to respell most of the words of this class in order to give their pronunciation, as, in their common orthography, they are naturally pronounced correctly, with the appropriate sound of the g.1860, Joseph Emerson Worcester, A comprehensive Dictionary of the English Language, Boston: Swan, Brewer, and Tileston, page 19

Forms of respell

third-person singular presentrespells
present participlerespelling
past participlerespelled
pastrespelled
past participlerespelt
pastrespelt

Origin of respell

1806, re- + spell.

Words formed from respell

Questions about respell

What does respell mean?
Respell means to spell again.
What part of speech is respell?
Respell is a verb.
What is the past tense of respell?
The past tense of respell is respelled.

Words near respell in the dictionary

  1. respectors
  2. respects
  3. respectuous
  4. respectworthy
  5. respek
  6. respell
  7. respelled
  8. respeller
  9. respellers
  10. respelling
  11. respellings

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: respell (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this entry: “respell.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/respell. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.