Leaf Spelling Dictionary

The doubling has landed on the wrong side of the stress

stress-doubleA doubled consonant marks a short stressed vowel in English. Reticulate has one of those, but the word never took the doubling.

heard asretticulate
spelledreticulate
saidri-TIK-yuu-lut

One t. reticulate.

English doubles the consonant that comes after a short stressed vowel, not the one before it. Here the stressed vowel is the i, and the consonant after it is the c. Doubling the t marks the unstressed re- instead, which is the quietest part of the word.

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