Ask WordMum: Licence vs License / Practice vs Practise
Welcome back the 2026 Edition of ‘Ask WordMum’. This month is a two for one special! Do you practice or practise your driving before taking the practical test? Once you’ve passed are you issued a licence or a license? Don’t worry, WordMum’s got you covered on which word gets you where you’re going.
If you want to catch up on posts from 2025, or last month, there’s now a dedicated page that lists them all for you, in alphabetical order.
Our Question
When do we use licence and when should it be license? What about practice and practise?
WordMum Says
These words are frequently confused. They sound the same, and we need to give some thought to the word’s role in the sentence to work out which spelling to use.
Some of the confusion also comes from the fact that US English uses only one spelling for all instances (licence / practice), so we can see it ‘misspelled’ so often it becomes hard to remember what’s correct.
UK and Australian English use the two spellings for these words, so let’s break it down. Words with these two endings (ce and se) tend to follow the same rules, so let’s tackle them together.
The key distinction is that one is a noun while the other is a verb.
Licence / Practice (noun)
The ‘ce’ spelling refers to a thing. For example, a driver’s licence or a medical practice.
License / Practise (verb, adjective)
The ‘se’ spelling refers to doing the thing. For example, a pub must be licensed and you practise your dance moves.
When used as an adjective, it is attached to the thing doing the thing. So, a licensing board grants licences, and a practising lawyer usually works in a legal practice.
How to remember which is which
This is the hard part! The most useful way to remember which spelling is for which form of the word is to use another pair that follow this pattern, but one where they sound different enough to help us.
I use advice and advise. The noun and verb words are pronounced differently, with advice using the softer ‘c’ sound and advise having more of a ‘z’ sound. So I ask myself if they are giving advice or advising someone. That helps me transfer the correct spelling to use to the word I’m actually wanting to use!
An unhelpful exception
English wouldn’t be English without an awkward exception, or three, to confuse matters!
I have also been asked about defence vs defense. These words look like they might follow the same pattern as the ones above, and the truth is: mostly.
These words are both nouns. So, they follow the pattern in that the spelling is defence in UK and Australian English, and you can use the advice/advise trick above to remember to use the ‘ce’ version. Defense is the US English spelling of the word (which does not follow their typical pattern).
The verb version of the concept doesn’t follow the same pattern as the other words above, as it is to defend. So, the defense spelling is never used in UK and Australian English.
Example Time!
Now that we’ve got a trick to use, let’s see how it operates.
He practised for his driving licence
In this clause, the person is practising (verb) for his licence (noun). If we substituted our reference words in, it would be he advised for his driving advice. The words sound more different in that version, so we know a) we probably want different endings and b) the z-like sound in advised helps us know which one is the ‘s’.
The licensing board certified the practice
Here we have licensing being used as an adjective and practice as a noun. Our substitution gives us: the advising board certified the advice. Again, the difference in sound (hopefully!) helps us know which spellings to use.
Her legal practice provided his defence
In this example, both troublesome words are nouns. Again, substituting them can help identify that: her legal advice provided his advice. Trying to use advise in either position here sounds weird because neither of them are verbs. While defense is always wrong in UK and Australian English, this substitution still helps us make sure we’re grabbing the right spelling!
I hope this trick works for you as well as it does for me. If you have a different way of knowing which spelling to use, I’d love to know!
Join us again soon for the next instalment in our wordy adventure. Keep writing and rolling, my friends!