Two emails arrived in the same week, from two readers, about the same word. The first, from Ohio, asked whether favourite was a typo. The second, from Manchester, asked whether favorite was one. Both were sure the other side had it wrong. Both were wrong about being right — and right about the word. Favorite and favourite are both correct. They mean exactly the same thing. The difference is not correctness. It is geography, history, and audience. And once you understand which is which, you will never be confused by either again.
One Word, Two Passports
Favorite and favourite describe something or someone preferred above all others. As an adjective: “What is your favorite movie?” “Blue is my favourite colour.” As a noun, the preferred person or thing: “The crowd favorite walked onto the stage.” “That dessert has been a family favourite for years.” The noun is countable — one favorite, several favorites — in both spelling systems.
The word also has a third life, in sports and competitions, where a favorite is the person or team expected to win: “She is the favorite to win the championship.” “The Lakers entered the series as heavy favorites.” “No one expected the underdog to beat the odds-on favorite.” All three meanings — preferred thing, preferred person, expected winner — apply equally to both spellings. The British favourite carries exactly the same meanings. Choosing between them is a decision about readership, not about right and wrong.
The meaning is the same in both cases. The rule is simple: writing for an American audience, use favorite. Writing for a British, Canadian, Australian, or New Zealand audience, use favourite. Writing for an international audience, pick one and use it consistently throughout your document.
The Man Who Deleted the U
The two spellings exist because of a deliberate reform, not an accident. English originally spelled the word favour and favourite, with the u. The word came into English through French — favori, meaning a favored one — and further back from Latin favor, meaning kindness or goodwill. For centuries, favourite with a u was simply how the word was spelled everywhere English was written.
Then, in 1828, the American lexicographer Noah Webster published his dictionary, An American Dictionary of the English Language. Webster deliberately simplified many British spellings, dropping the u from words ending in -our. His reasoning was partly practical — he believed English spelling should be simpler and more phonetic — and partly political. A newly independent United States wanted its own identity, and that included a distinct American English. The result: favour became favor, colour became color, honour became honor, and favourite became favorite.
British English kept the original spellings, and so did the other countries that followed British conventions: Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and much of the rest of the Commonwealth. So when you choose between favorite and favourite, you are following a spelling tradition nearly two hundred years old — not correcting an error. And favorite is not an isolated case. It belongs to a large family where American English uses -or and British English uses -our: color/colour, honor/honour, humor/humour, labor/labour, neighbor/neighbour, behavior/behaviour, flavor/flavour, rumor/rumour, armor/armour, harbor/harbour, vapor/vapour, savior/saviour, endeavor/endeavour, favor/favour. Learn the pattern once and you can apply it to dozens of words — with one caution: not every -or word has a British -our twin. Doctor, author, and error are spelled the same everywhere.
Reading the Room: Which Country, Which Spelling
So how do you choose? Match the spelling to the audience in front of you.
Use favorite when you are writing for an American audience, following American style guides such as AP style, or when your school, company, or publisher uses American English. American schools, newspapers, businesses, and publishers all use favorite. In an American document, the British spelling will look like a typo — and spellcheckers set to US English will flag favourite as an error. That is not because the word is wrong; it is because the dictionary is regional.
Use favourite when you are writing for a British audience, following UK style conventions, or when your school, company, or publisher uses British English. UK schools, newspapers, businesses, and publishers all use favourite. In a British document, the American spelling will look like an Americanism, and spellcheckers set to UK English will flag favorite for the same regional reason in reverse.
The pronunciation, by the way, is identical for both spellings: FAY-vrit, two syllables with the stress on the first. The ou in the British spelling does not change the sound at all. Because the pronunciation is the same, you cannot tell from speech which spelling someone means. That is why the question only matters in writing.
Canada, the In-Between
Canada is the interesting case, and the one that confuses the most writers. Canadian English generally follows British spelling conventions for the -our family, so favourite is common in Canadian publications, schools, and government writing. But Canada’s close cultural and commercial ties with the United States mean favorite appears frequently too, especially online and in informal writing.
The safest approach for Canada: use favourite in formal writing, and stay consistent. The same advice holds for Australia and New Zealand, where favourite is standard. For an international audience, pick one spelling and use it consistently from beginning to end. Most international publications choose one house style and stick with it. What you should never do is switch back and forth. A document that says favorite in the first paragraph and favourite in the third looks sloppy, even though each spelling is individually correct.
The Only Real Mistake
That is the heart of it: the only real mistake with this word is mixing the two spellings in the same document. Everything else is a choice. A useful habit is to decide the spelling before you start writing, the way you decide the currency before you price a product. If the document is for Chicago, it is favorite. If it is for London, it is favourite. If it is for the whole internet, it is whichever one you chose in the first paragraph — and then that one, every time, all the way down.
The same regional split runs through the whole word family, which is worth knowing if you write about preferences often. The adverb follows the pattern: favorably in American English, favourably in British English. The related verb follows it too: She favors the earlier date in American English, She favours the earlier date in British English, with favored/favoured and favoring/favouring continuing the split. Keep the family consistent and the document reads as polished in either country.
Favorite on Screen and in Song
The word is woven through popular culture, which is one reason it feels so familiar. “My Favorite Things” is one of the most recorded songs of the twentieth century — raindrops on roses, whiskers on kittens, bright copper kettles — and it has carried the American spelling around the world for decades. Polls ask for America’s favorite movie, Britain’s favourite biscuit, the world’s favourite novel. Streaming services let you mark a show as a favorite. Online shops let you save a favorite seller. Games let you pick a favorite weapon, a favorite character, a favorite map.
The phrase “add to favorites” is worth a second look, because it is where many writers first meet the word in a technical context. In a browser, favoriting a page bookmarks it. In a shop, favoriting a product saves it for later. In both cases the spelling follows the platform’s house style — American platforms write favorite, British platforms write favourite — and the user never gets a choice. That is a useful reminder: in software, the spelling is decided for you. In your own writing, it is decided by your audience.
There is also a small piece of etiquette hiding in the word’s popularity. Lists of favorites — Oprah’s Favorite Things, a magazine’s favorite restaurants, a friend’s favorite films — are declarations of taste, and they invite disagreement. “That’s not my favorite” is one of the gentlest arguments in English. It says: your ranking is valid, mine is different, and neither of us is wrong. The spelling works the same way. Two standards, both valid, and the only mistake is insisting that one of them is the typo.
Favorite at Work and Play
Beyond spelling, the word does real work in everyday English. Fan favorite describes a person or thing especially loved by fans: “The young actor quickly became a fan favorite.” Odds-on favorite names the competitor with the highest chance of winning, according to betting odds. Play favorites — or play favourites in British English — means treating some people better than others in an unfair way: “A good manager should never play favorites.” A personal favorite is something you especially like, stated as a matter of taste: “Mystery novels are a personal favorite of mine.” And one of my favorites is the graceful way to name something you like without ranking it first: “Hiking is one of my favorites.”
If you want alternatives, preferred works well in formal and business writing, beloved carries emotional warmth for people and treasured things, chosen fits selections and decisions, and dearest is personal and affectionate. But none of them replaces favorite completely, because none of them carries all three of its meanings at once. Two readers, two emails, one word — and now you know what to tell both of them: neither spelling is the typo. The typo is only ever the mix.
