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Paola Pascual

210 Words With Silent Letters – A Comprehensive List



Silent letters are letters that use to write the word, but we don’t pronounce. You will see them on paper, but you won’t hear them when you say the word. In this post, you will find a comprehensive list of words that contain silent letters. Bookmark this page so that you can check it anytime and download our free guide for more tips on how to improve your English pronunciation.

Why Are There Silent Letters?

Silent letters may seem useless but –believe it or not– they are not always redundant. They may help us in different ways:

Homophones. Silent letters help us distinguish between homophones (i.e. words that are pronounced the same but have different meanings) in writing (e.g. be/bee, in/inn, lent/leant, rest/wrest, new/knew, night/knight, jam/jamb).

️ Pronunciation. Even though these letters are not pronounced, they can help the reader to stress the correct syllable (e.g. physics/physiques) and also change the pronunciation of other letters (e.g. guest/gesture, rid/ride).

️ Origin. Silent letters may help us better understand the origin or meaning of a word and also connect them with one another from the same family (e.g. resign-resignation, vine-vineyard).

Now that you see they’re not totally useless –at least not always– let’s check what words have silent letters. Read the list and pronounce the following terms out loud. Try to use them in a sentence, and you will see much better results in your pronunciation.

Words With Silent Letters

Look at the words below and read them out loud. Putting them in a sentence will help you better remember which words include silent letters.

Words With Silent B

The letter B is often silent when it is placed at the end of a word and is preceded by M (-MB).

  1. Aplomb

  2. Bomb

  3. Climb

  4. Comb

  5. Crumb

  6. Debt

  7. Doubt

  8. Dumb

  9. Jamb

  10. Lamb

  11. Limb

  12. Numb

  13. Plumb

  14. Subtle

  15. Succumb

  16. Thumb

  17. Tomb

  18. Womb

Words With Silent C

The letter C is often silent when it is placed after an S (SC).

  1. Abscess

  2. Ascend / ascent

  3. Conscience

  4. Conscious

  5. Crescent

  6. Descend

  7. Disciple

  8. Evanesce

  9. Fascinate

  10. Fluorescent

  11. Muscle

  12. Obscene

  13. Resuscitate

  14. Scenario

  15. Scene

  16. Scissors

Words With Silent D

The letter D is often silent when it is placed in the middle of a word, either after an N or before a G (-DG-, -ND-).

  1. Bridge

  2. Edge

  3. Handkerchief (**NOTE: in the word “hand”, the D is not silent)

  4. Handsome

  5. Handful

  6. Grandson

  7. Ledger

  8. Sandwich

  9. Wednesday

Words With Silent E

Many words contain a silent E, especially at the end of a word. Usually these words end in Vowel + Consonant + Silent E. The list is very extensive; here are some examples:

  1. Debate

  2. Desire

  3. Excite

  4. Kite

  5. Love

  6. Make

  7. Name

In American English, we tend to drop silent E’s in some words.

  1. Judgement (BrE) / judgment (AmE)

  2. Programme (BrE) / program (AmE)

Words With Silent G

The letter G is oftentimes silent when it is placed before N, mostly when GN appears at the beginning or the end of the word. It is also usually silent when it appears before H (GH).

  1. Align

  2. Assign

  3. Benign

  4. Champagne

  5. Cologne

  6. Consign

  7. Design

  8. Feign

  9. Foreign

  10. Gnarl

  11. Gnash

  12. Gnaw

  13. Gnome

  14. Gnomic

  15. High

  16. Light

  17. Resign

  18. Sign

Words With Silent H

The letter H is sometimes silent when it is placed after C (CH) and it is always silent when it appears after some consonants (GH, WH, RH). Here are +30 words with silent H:

  1. Anchor

  2. Archeology (in BrE: archaeology)

  3. Architect / architecture

  4. Archive

  5. Borough

  6. Chaos

  7. Character / characteristic

  8. Charisma

  9. Chemical / chemistry / chemist

  10. Choreograph

  11. Chorus

  12. Christmas / Christian

  13. Echo

  14. Heir

  15. Herbs (**only in AmE)

  16. Hour

  17. Honest / honor

  18. Ghost

  19. Psychology

  20. Rhino

  21. Schedule (**only in AmE)

  22. Scheme

  23. School

  24. Tech / technology / techie

  25. Thai / Thailand

  26. Thigh

  27. Thorough

  28. Vehicle

  29. Weigh

  30. What / when / where / why / which

  31. White

  32. While

Words With Silent K

The letter K is silent when it appears at the beginning of a word followed by N (KN-).

  1. Knack

  2. Knave

  3. Knead

  4. Knee

  5. Kneel

  6. Knell

  7. Knickers

  8. Knife

  9. Knight

  10. Knit

  11. Knob

  12. Knock

  13. Knoll

  14. Knot

  15. Know / knew / known

  16. Knowledge

  17. Knuckle

Words With Silent L

The letter L is often silent in the combination ALF, ALM, and OULD.

  1. Almond

  2. Balm

  3. Behalf

  4. Calf

  5. Chalk

  6. Could

  7. Folk

  8. Half

  9. Palm

  10. Salmon

  11. Should

  12. Stalk

  13. Talk

  14. Walk

  15. Would

  16. Yolk

Words With Silent N

The letter N is often silent when it appears at the end of a word preceded by the letter M (-MN).

  1. Autumn

  2. Column

  3. Condemn

  4. Damn

  5. Hymn

  6. Solemn

Words With Silent P

The letter P is often silent at the beginning of a word followed by S (PS-).

  1. Coup

  2. Cupboard

  3. Psychology

  4. Pneumonia

  5. Pseudo

  6. Psychiatrist

  7. Psychiatry

  8. Psychotherapy

  9. Psychotic

  10. Receipt

Words With Silent T

  1. Apostle

  2. Bristle

  3. Bustle

  4. Castle

  5. Fasten

  6. Glisten

  7. Hustle

  8. Listen

  9. Moisten

  10. Often

Words With Silent U

The silent U is used to soften the letter G (GU-). It is also silent in most words with the structure -UIT or -UILT.

  1. Baguette

  2. Biscuit

  3. Build

  4. Building

  5. Built

  6. Circuit

  7. Disguise

  8. Guess

  9. Guest

  10. Guide

  11. Guild

  12. Guilt

  13. Guilty

  14. Guise

  15. Guitar

  16. Rogue

  17. Silhouette

Words With Silent W

The letter W is often silent when it is placed before the letter R (WR).

  1. Awry

  2. Playwright

  3. Sword

  4. Wrack

  5. Wrangle

  6. Wrap

  7. Wrapper

  8. Wrath

  9. Wreak

  10. Wreath

  11. Wreck

  12. Wrestle

  13. Wriggle

  14. Wring

  15. Wrinkle

  16. Wrist

  17. Writ

  18. Write / wrote / written

  19. Wrong

Keep Improving Your English Pronunciation

Some of these may sound like difficult silent words in English (or words with silent letters in them), but it’s only a matter of practice!

Download our free pronunciation guide and learn how to improve your English pronunciation. It includes video tutorials and tips to practice on your own. If you are serious about improving your pronunciation and business English, contact Talaera. We will help you find the program for you and your teams.


How to Improve Your English Pronunciation - Talaera

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