Identify the misspelt word

Correct — D. The right spelling is quintessence, ending -ence.

The word is quint-, 'fifth', plus essence, from Medieval Latin quinta essentia, 'fifth essence'. Essence ends in -ence, and it keeps that ending inside the longer word.

Quintessance swaps that e for an a, so it is the misspelt word → option (d).

Why the others are wrong

• (a)
  Vicereine — Vicereine is spelt correctly. It names the wife of a viceroy, or a woman who is a viceroy, and comes from French vice-reine, reine being 'queen'.
• (b)
  Floccinaucinihilipilification — Floccinaucinihilipilification is spelt correctly, all 29 letters. It means the habit of judging something worthless, strung together from four Latin words for things of little or no value.
• (c)
  Defenestrate — Defenestrate is spelt correctly. It means to throw someone out of a window, from Latin fenestra, 'window', with de-, 'down from'.

Here the error sits in the least unusual word. Vicereine, Floccinaucinihilipilification and Defenestrate look strange, but each is spelt as the dictionary has it.

The trap is the suffix vowel. -ance and -ence sound the same in speech, so the ear cannot decide. Look instead for a word you already spell inside the long one.

Quintessence contains essence, so it keeps -ence. A related word you know does the same work elsewhere: relevant gives relevance, different gives difference.

Key facts

• Quintessence means the most perfect or typical example of a quality or class.
• It comes from Medieval Latin quinta essentia, 'fifth essence'.
• Floccinaucinihilipilification means the action or habit of estimating something as worthless.
• Defenestration is the act of throwing someone out of a window, from Latin fenestra, 'window'.

Common traps

• Marking the longest or strangest word as misspelt because it looks wrong
• Trusting the sound of the last syllable over the base word essence

No directly related past PYQ was found.