How to Spell Celsius — a Quick Spelling Guide

The spelling of English can be problematic. The English language adopted many words from other languages freely. The language’s vocabulary consists chiefly of French, Latin, and Greek, which is unusual for a language of Germanic origin.

As a result of its varied origins in wording, the same sound can be pronounced in multiple ways. Since then, the way to spell has not been streamlined or standardized. This is why we still have problems with spelling, especially with borrowed words or scientific words.

This brings us to today’s article’s topic — how to spell celsius.

According to the rules in English, it can be both as “C” can be pronounced in various ways. This is why we decided to dedicate this post to Celsius. What are its origins, where are they used, and how to spell Celsius. And also, what are the differences between Celsius and Centigrade? Keep reading if you want to find out more!

The Dictionary Definition of Celsius

brown wooden thermometer in Celsius mounted to a wooden wall.
Photo by Bianca Ackermann on Unsplash

Celsius degree was the invention of Anders Celsius of Sweden.

The underlying principle is very simple. Anders Celsius simply measured the freezing point of water at sea level and standard pressure and marked that as 0 degrees (or 0°). Standard atmospheric pressure or 1 atm was used in this calculation. On the other end of the spectrum, he measured the boiling point of water and marked that as 100°. And that is how we got the most widely used temperature scale in the world.

In fact, only a handful of countries don’t use Celsius to measure the temperature, the US being the most known of them. In the US, another temperature scale, Fahrenheit, is used. Fahrenheit is named after Daniel Gabriel Fahrenheit, a German scientist. 

Almost every country on earth measures its temperature in Celsius except the United States. For example, Celsius assigns freezing and boiling points of water to round numbers, zero and 100°. If we get to negative values during the day with Celsius, we are probably going to have snow!

In Fahrenheit, strangely, the freezing point is 32°, and the boiling point is 212°.

Difference Between Celsius and Centigrade

These two words imply basically the same thing; however, we don’t utilize the latter anymore.

Centigrade is a simple word: centi means 100, and grade means degree. Since the temperature scale is measured from zero to a hundred, utilizing this word made sense.

However, the latter word was changed to Celsius to honor Anders Celsius properly.

Now that we know the basics let’s move on to how to spell Celsius!

How to Spell Celsius?

Although sometimes the word is misspelled as Celcius, this doesn’t mean anything. It is only a typo. The name of the scientist was Anders Celsius, and that is how we should write the word.

The phonetic transcription of its pronunciation is sEl-see-uhs.

Conclusion

One of the most common spelling mistakes made when writing the word Celsius is using the letter c instead of s. You should spell it as c-e-l-s-i-u-s.

Pam is an expert grammarian with years of experience teaching English, writing and ESL Grammar courses at the university level. She is enamored with all things language and fascinated with how we use words to shape our world.

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