Favored or favoured?
In American English write favored; in British and Commonwealth English, favoured. favored is an adjective meaning “US standard spelling of favoured”; favoured is an adjective meaning “Treated or regarded with partiality”. In written English (wordfreq, 2021 data) favored is about 1.7 times as common as favoured.
What is the difference between favored and favoured?
| favored | favoured | |
|---|---|---|
| Part of speech | adjective, verb | adjective, verb |
| Meaning | USUS standard spelling of favoured | Treated or regarded with partiality Having a certain appearance or physical features |
| Example | none recorded | ill-favoured; well-favoured; hard-favoured |
| Pronunciation | not recorded | /ˈfeɪ.vɚd/ /ˈfeɪ.vəd/ |
| Region | US | no label |
| In writing | 5.9 times per million words | 3.5 times per million words |
Sources: favored and favoured in the English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0); written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).
Every current meaning of favored and favoured
favored
- 1
USUS standard spelling of favoured
favoured
- 1
Treated or regarded with partiality
- 2
Having a certain appearance or physical features
ill-favoured; well-favoured; hard-favoured
- 3
datedWearing a favour
a white-favoured footman
Source: the English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0); obsolete, archaic, dialect and rare senses left out.
Which is more common, favored or favoured?
favored appears 5.9 times per million words; favoured 3.5 times per million words.
favored 5.9 times per million wordsfavoured 3.5 times per million words
Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).
How many people search favored vs favoured?
“favored vs favoured” is searched about 10 times a month on Google (Bing reports no separate figure) in the United States. Google counts close variants of a query together (“favoured vs favored”, “favored or favoured”).
Sources: Google Ads keyword data through DataForSEO and Microsoft Advertising keyword data through DataForSEO, the average month from September 2025 to August 2026.