Silent e

Silent e or silent final e is a spelling pattern in English that has 5 uses that can be exemplified with lake (a as /eɪ/), office (c as /s/), love (words don't end in v), handle (at least one vowel per syllable), and goose (to mark the word as a singular noun).

Magic e
See main article Magic e

Make c and g soft
At the end of a word "c" sounds /k/ and "g" sounds /g/. A silent e makes "c" sound /s/ and "g" sound /dʒ/.


 * "ce": choice - experience - lettuce - office - once - police - service - since
 * Combined silent e and magic e: advice - face - price - place
 * Silent e and magic e with two consonants: scarce


 * "ge": charge - knowledge - language - large - manage - vegetable
 * Combined silent e and magic e: age - page - stage
 * Silent e and magic e with two consonants: change - range - strange

Keep u and v from being the last letter in a word
There are very few English words that end in "u" or "v". Most (if not all) words that end in /v/ are spelled with "ve". Many words that end in /uː/ are spelled with "ue".


 * /v/: above - believe - curve - give - have - improve - involve - leave - live /lɪv/ - love - move - naive - receive - serve
 * Magic e: arrive - brave - drive - live /laɪv/ - save - shave - wave


 * /uː/:argue - blue - continue - due - issue - pursue - rescue - revenue - tissue - true - value

Exceptions:
 * /v/: mazeltov - of - perv - rev
 * "u": emu - flu - gnu - guru - haiku - Hindu - menu - Peru - snafu - tofu - you

Keep a syllable from having no vowels

 * article - couple - example - handle - little - middle - people - simple - single - trouble
 * Magic e with two consonants: able - acre - bible - cable - cradle - fable - idle - maple - noble - stable - table - title


 * all words with suffixes "able" and "ible": available, possible


 * UK spelling: centre - litre - theatre
 * Magic e with two consonants: fibre - metre

Exceptions. The following examples have a syllable with no vowel letters:
 * rhythm
 * some contractions: couldn't - doesn't - hasn't - isn't - shouldn't - wouldn't
 * all words ending in "sm": enthusiasm - mechanism

IPA phonetic symbol [l&#809;]
 * See also

Keep a singular word from ending in s

 * Words that follow this rule
 * ending in /s/: goose - house - mouse - promise /ˈprɒmɪs/ - purchase - purpose - release
 * magic e: abuse - case - excuse - use
 * ending in /z/: cause - cheese - disease - noise - pause
 * magic e: nose - phase - phrase - rose - surprise


 * Words that don't follow this rule: alias - bonus - bus - canvas - chaos - Christmas - focus - gas - genius - plus - status - tennis - versus - virus

See also: Advanced decoding exercises: /s/ vs /z/

Other function or no function
In these words, the silent e does not affect the pronunciation. Most of these have short vowels instead of long.
 * are - determine - discipline - ermine - famine - gone - imagine - medicine
 * breeze - freeze - maize - sneeze
 * catalogue - cheque - colleague - dialogue - giraffe - league - programme - tongue

Silent e changes the vowel, but it doesn't make it long.
 * come - corporate - done - private - some

Silent e makes the vowel long but it isn't a magic e because it doesn't make the vowel say its name.
 * antique - gasoline - machine - magazine - submarine - technique - vaseline - unique

Misleading final e
In this section we show words in which the pattern single letter vowel + single consonant letter or digraph + letter e (VCe) does not make the vowel say its name.

"a" doesn't sound /eɪ/ nor /eə/
 * /æ/: have
 * /ɑː/: are
 * /ə/: climate - corporate - estimate (n.) - purchase - private - separate (adj.)
 * /ɪ/: surface
 * ending in "age" as /ɪdʒ/: advantage - average - coverage - damage - encourage - garbage - image - manage - message - mortgage - package - passage - percentage - storage - village

"e" doesn't sound /iː/ nor /ɪə/
 * //: allege
 * /ɪ/: college, privilege, sacrilege
 * /eə/: there, where
 * /ɜː/: were

"i" doesn't sound /aɪ/
 * /ɪ/: determine - discipline - engine - examine - favourite - imagine - justice - medicine - notice - office - opposite - practice - premise - promise - service
 * ending in "ive" as /ɪv/: active - alternative - competitive - conservative - effective - expensive - executive - give - initiative - live (verb) - native - negative - objective - perspective - positive - relative - representative
 * /iː/:machine - magazine - police

"o" doesn't sound /əʊ/
 * /ʌ/: above - become - come - income - love - none - one - some
 * /ɒ/ or /ɔː/: gone
 * /uː/: approve - improve - lose - move - prove - remove - whose
 * /ə/: purpose - welcome

"u" doesn't sound /uː/ nor /juː/
 * /ɪ/: lettuce - minute (60 seconds)

As this page shows, normally final e is silent. However there are words in which it has a sound.
 * Pronounced final e
 * as /iː/ or /ɪ/: apostrophe - catastrophe - Chile - coyote - karate - machete - recipe - sesame

Magic e in the middle of the word
Magic e is defined at the end of the word. In the middle of the word it works in the following cases:
 * Suffixes
 * like + -ed = liked; wide + -er = wider; wide + -est = widest; hope + -ful = hopeful; care + -less = careless; like + -ly = likely; state + -ment = statement; face + -s = faces;


 * Compound words
 * note + pad = notepad; sale + s + person = salesperson; time + table = timetable

Some compound words don't have a magic e. Some words look compound but they are not.
 * Exceptions
 * dromedary /ˈdrɒmədəri/ is not drome + dary in English (it comes from Greek and Latin)
 * pomegranate /ˈpɒmɪɡrænɪt/ is not pome + granate in English (it comes from Old French)
 * sovereign /ˈsɒvrɪn/ is not sove + reign in English (it comes from soverain in Old French)
 * vine + yard = vineyard /ˈvɪnjərd/