Both favourite and favorite are correct. Neither one is a typo, and neither is more “proper” than the other. The real difference comes down to geography. Favorite is the spelling used across the United States, while favourite is standard in the UK, Canada, Australia, India, and most of the rest of the English-speaking world. So the question isn’t really which spelling is right, it’s which one matches the audience you’re writing for. This guide breaks down exactly how the two spellings split by country, what the major dictionaries and style guides say, and a couple of tricks to help the right one stick for good.
Do “Favorite” and “Favourite” Mean the Same Thing?
Yes, completely. Favourite and favorite share the same meaning, the same pronunciation, and the same grammar. As a noun, it refers to whatever you like best, your favourite song, your favorite restaurant, a team’s favourite to win a race. As an adjective, it describes the thing itself, a favorite color, a favourite childhood memory. Say either version out loud and they sound identical too, something close to “FAY-vrit” or “FAY-vuh-rit,” with the “u” in favourite staying silent either way.
Here’s an easy way to remember which spelling drops the letter. Think about the word favor. American English never adds a “u” to favor, so it doesn’t add one to favorite either. British English keeps the “u” in favour, the same way it keeps it in colour, honour, and labour, so favourite keeps it too. Once that pattern clicks, the spelling stops feeling like something to double-check.
Favorite or Favourite by Country
The spelling isn’t just a US versus UK split. It follows English as it’s used across several regions, each with its own standard reference.
| Region | Preferred Spelling | Standard Reference |
| United States | favorite | Merriam-Webster, AP Stylebook |
| United Kingdom | favourite | Oxford English Dictionary |
| Canada | favourite | Canadian Oxford Dictionary, Canadian Press |
| Australia & New Zealand | favourite | Macquarie Dictionary |
| India | favourite | Follows British convention |
| South Africa | favourite | Follows British convention |
United States
In American English, favorite is the only spelling you’ll find in edited writing. Merriam-Webster lists it as the main entry, and the AP Stylebook, which most US newsrooms and businesses follow, uses the shorter, “u”-free spelling without exception. If your audience is American, favorite is the expected choice every time.
United Kingdom
Cross the Atlantic and favourite takes over. It’s the headword in the Oxford English Dictionary, Britain’s most authoritative reference, and it’s what shows up in UK newspapers, schoolbooks, and government writing. Using “favorite” in British content usually reads as a spelling slip rather than a stylistic choice.
Canada
Canadian English is genuinely its own blend, not just a copy of British spelling. Both the Canadian Oxford Dictionary and the Canadian Press style guide call for favourite, right alongside colour and honour. But Canadian spelling isn’t British across the board. It spells tire and aluminum the American way, so favourite is one of several words worth checking against a Canadian-specific source rather than assuming every word follows the UK pattern by default.
Australia and New Zealand
The Macquarie Dictionary, the standard reference for Australian English, treats local spelling as closer to British than American overall, and favourite follows that lead. New Zealand English follows the same pattern.
India and South Africa
Both regions built their English-language education and publishing traditions on British conventions, so favourite is what you’ll find across Indian and South African newspapers, textbooks, and formal writing.
Favorite or Favourite in the Real World
Seeing the spelling in context makes the pattern easier to remember than any rule on its own.
- A US product review: “This is my new favorite pair of running shoes.”
- A UK newspaper headline: “Chef reveals her favourite Sunday roast recipe.”
- A Canadian newsletter: “Vote for your favourite product in this year’s customer survey.”
- An Australian tourism site: “Bondi Beach remains a favourite spot for locals and visitors alike.”
- A business email to a US client: “Let us know your favorite meeting time next week.”
- An academic paper submitted to a UK journal: “Participants ranked their favourite study method.”
The pattern holds no matter the setting. Casual writing, business communication, or academic work, the spelling follows the region, not the topic.
What the Dictionaries Say
If you want a second opinion beyond a style guide, the dictionaries agree completely, they just present it from different angles. Merriam-Webster, the leading American dictionary, lists “favorite” as its main entry and treats “favourite” as the British variant. Cambridge Dictionary settles it even more directly, defining “favorite” as the American spelling of “favourite,” and giving both British and American pronunciations side by side. The Oxford English Dictionary, Britain’s definitive historical dictionary, runs it the other way, “favourite” is the headword there, with “favorite” cross-referenced as the American form.
None of the three treats either spelling as wrong. They organize the entry differently depending on which side of the Atlantic the dictionary comes from. That agreement across three separate, independently compiled dictionaries is about as strong a confirmation as English spelling ever gets. This isn’t a case of one source being outdated and another being current, it’s a straightforward regional split that every major dictionary documents the same way.
What Style Guides Recommend
Dictionaries confirm the spelling exists. Style guides tell you when to apply it.
The AP Stylebook, the standard for American newsrooms, marketing teams, and most US business writing, uses “favorite” without exception. Writing for a US audience or an American platform generally means sticking with the American form throughout.
Oxford-style guides, common across UK publishing and academic writing, favour the “-our” spellings, including “favourite,” “colour,” and “honour.” Most UK universities and publishers default to this convention unless a specific house style says otherwise.
The Chicago Manual of Style, widely used in US academic and book publishing, defers to Merriam-Webster as its base dictionary, so “favorite” is the expected spelling in Chicago-style writing too.
For Canadian writers, the Canadian Press Stylebook is the closest thing to a national standard, and it calls for “favourite,” matching the Canadian Oxford Dictionary.
The pattern across every guide is the same. None of them debate whether favorite or favourite is correct. Each one simply confirms which spelling is correct for its region. Match your style guide to your audience, and the spelling decides itself.
Favorite or Favourite as a Noun, Adjective, and Verb
Both spellings work identically across three grammatical roles.
As a noun, favorite (or favourite) means the person or thing you like best. “Chocolate cake is my favorite.” “She’s always been the teacher’s favourite.” It also shows up in sports and competitions, where “the favourite” is whoever’s expected to win.
As an adjective, it describes whatever follows it directly. My favorite movie. Our favourite restaurant. His favorite time of year.
As a verb, it’s less common in everyday speech but familiar from social media. To “favorite” or “favourite” something means to bookmark it or mark it as liked. “I favorited that post so I could find it again later.” “She favourited three photos from the trip.” The past tense follows the same regional split, favorited in American English and favourited in British and Commonwealth English, and the present participle splits the same way, favoriting versus favouriting.
There’s one more form worth knowing: the plural. Favorites and favourites follow the same regional rule as the singular, and it doubles as a real metric on social platforms, as in “the post picked up 200 favourites overnight.”
Related Words That Follow the Same Rule
The same “-or” versus “-our” pattern runs through a whole family of related words, so once you’ve settled on a spelling for favorite, the rest fall in line automatically.
- Favor (US) / Favour (UK, Canada, Australia): “Could you do me a favor?” versus “Could you do me a favour?”
- Favorable (US) / Favourable (UK, Canada, Australia): “The reviews were favorable” versus “The reviews were favourable.”
- Favoritism (US) / Favouritism (UK, Canada, Australia): “The coach was accused of favoritism” versus “The coach was accused of favouritism.”
The same regional logic shows up across plenty of other English word pairs. If doubled consonants are more your puzzle, benefited vs benefitted walks through a similar US-UK split, and flier vs flyer covers a case where both spellings are accepted for entirely different reasons.
Fav or Fave? The Casual Short Form
Text speak and social media have given us two more spellings to keep straight, fav and fave. Both are informal shortenings of favorite or favourite, and both are pronounced the same way, rhyming with “wave.” Fav has been around since the 1930s, originally as horse-racing slang for the expected winner of a race. Fave showed up a few years later in entertainment writing and has stuck around as the go-to short form in texts, captions, and casual writing generally.
There’s no strict rule for choosing between them. Fav feels like a direct clip of “favorite,” while fave reads a little closer to how the word actually sounds. Neither belongs in formal or professional writing, so save both for the casual stuff, texts, captions, quick notes to friends, where a shortened form actually fits the tone.
Why Are There Two Spellings? A Short History
The split between favorite and favourite goes back further than most people expect, and it has nothing to do with one version being a modern shortcut.
The word entered English in the late 1500s from the Italian favorito, by way of French. For the next couple of centuries, English writers used a mix of spellings without much consistency, spelling wasn’t standardized yet, and even Shakespeare spelled his own name more than one way. By the late 1600s, “favourite” had become the more common form in Britain and stayed that way from then on.
America’s break from that pattern traces back to one person. When Noah Webster published his American Dictionary of the English Language in 1828, he deliberately dropped the “u” from favourite and a long list of similar words, including colour, honour, and labour, partly to simplify spelling and partly to give American English an identity separate from Britain’s. British spelling, meanwhile, had already been shaped by lexicographer Samuel Johnson’s 1755 dictionary, which favored the traditional “-our” endings rooted in the word’s French and Latin history.
Neither Webster nor Johnson invented a new word. They were both documenting the spelling their readers already leaned toward, and a couple of centuries later, that regional split has barely moved.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is it “favorite” or “favourite”?
Both are correct. Use “favorite” for American English and “favourite” for British, Canadian, Australian, Indian, and most other varieties of English worldwide. Neither spelling is a mistake, they simply suit different audiences.
What is the correct spelling of favourite?
There isn’t one universally correct spelling, only a regionally correct one. Writing for a US audience makes “favorite” correct. Writing for a UK, Canadian, Australian, or Indian audience makes “favourite” correct.
Are “favorites” and “favourites” both correct?
Yes. The plural follows the same regional rule as the singular, favorites in American English, favourites everywhere else.
Is “favorite” a verb?
Yes, informally. To favorite or favourite something means to mark it as liked or bookmark it, most often on social media or apps. Favorited and favoriting are the American forms, favourited and favouriting are the British and Commonwealth forms.
Is it favourite or favorite in Canada?
Favourite. Canadian English generally follows British spelling for “-our” words like favourite, colour, and honour, even though it uses American spelling for other words, such as tire and aluminum.
What’s the most common mistake people make with this word?
Mixing both spellings within the same piece of writing, using “favorite” in one paragraph and “favourite” in another. Pick one based on your audience and hold it steady from start to finish.
The Bottom Line
Favourite and favorite are both correct, both carry the exact same meaning, and both are pronounced the same way. The only thing that actually separates them is geography. Favorite is the standard in American English, while favourite holds that position across British, Canadian, Australian, Indian, South African, and most other varieties of English spoken around the world. Neither version is more proper than the other, and neither is ever wrong on its own. The real mistake is mixing the two within a single piece of writing.
The simplest way to choose is to think about who’s actually going to read your work. Writing for an American audience, a US-based company, or an AP-style newsroom? Go with favorite. Writing for readers in the UK, Canada, Australia, India, or anywhere else that leans British? Favourite is the safer, more natural choice. Once that call is made, apply it consistently, across the headline, the body copy, and every related word that follows the same “-or” versus “-our” pattern, including favor or favour, favorable or favourable, and favoritism or favouritism.
Getting comfortable with regional spelling differences like this one does more than settle a single word. It sharpens overall writing accuracy, keeps tone consistent from one piece to the next, and shows readers you understand exactly who you’re writing for, which matters in academic work, business communication, and everyday writing alike. That kind of attention to detail is what separates polished, professional writing from a piece that just reads as slightly off to a native speaker in that region.
If this kind of regional and grammar detail is useful, a couple of related guides are worth a look too. Anytime vs any time untangles another everyday mix-up, and alot and a lot clears up one of the most common spelling errors in English writing. Between these guides, spelling decisions like this one stop being a guessing game.
Whichever spelling is chosen today, favorite or favourite, it was never really a wrong answer. It was always just a matter of who’s reading.
