Manoeuvre

How to spell manoeuvre

9 letters · 3 syllables

39 of the 65 people asked to spell manoeuvre in Spelling Garden got it wrong the first time.

The most common mistake is manouver. The letters people get wrong are highlighted.

manouver manoeuvre

What people typed instead

• manouver10 people
• manouevre7 people
• manouvre5 people

How to pronounce manoeuvre

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does manoeuvre mean?

1. nounA planned or skilful movement, especially one requiring care or cunning.

Manoeuvre in a sentence

• A clever manoeuvre won the game.

• Parking in this space requires a tricky manoeuvre.

• The pilot performed a daring manoeuvre.

Where does manoeuvre come from?

Language of origin: French

This word comes from the French manoeuvre, which meant a tactical movement or a piece of handiwork. The French built it from the Medieval Latin manuopera, a compound of manus, meaning 'hand', and operari, meaning 'to work', so the literal sense was 'working with the hand'. English first took in the related noun in the form 'manure' (the same root, originally meaning to till land by hand) before borrowing 'manoeuvre' afresh from French in the eighteenth century for military and naval movements. The British spelling keeps the full French -oeuvre cluster, which is exactly why it traps writers: the silent 'o' beside the 'e', and the -vre ending rather than -ver, fight against how the word actually sounds. The very same -oeuvre also surfaces in the kitchen term 'hors d'oeuvre', another reminder that the awkward letters are imported wholesale from French.

How the word is built

• man- (from Latin manus: hand)
• -oeuvre (from Latin opera/operari: work) = literally 'working by hand'

British and American spelling

Manoeuvre is the British spelling. American English spells it maneuver.

People who misspell manoeuvre also struggle with

Of the Spelling Garden players who got manoeuvre wrong the first time, this is how many also got each of these wrong.

• supersede 92% of them got it wrong
• idiosyncrasy 73% of them got it wrong
• connoisseur 72% of them got it wrong
• reconnaissance 54% of them got it wrong
• rendezvous 44% of them got it wrong