Practice or practise?
practice is a noun meaning “Repetition of an activity to improve a skill”; practise is a verb meaning “To repeat (an activity) as a way of improving one's skill in that activity”. Use practice as a noun and practise as a verb. In written English (wordfreq, 2021 data) practice is about 35 times as common as practise.
What is the difference between practice and practise?
| practice | practise | |
|---|---|---|
| Part of speech | noun, verb | verb |
| Meaning | Repetition of an activity to improve a skill An organized event for the purpose of performing such repetition | To repeat (an activity) as a way of improving one's skill in that activity To repeat an activity in this way |
| Example | Near-synonyms: (sometimes synonymous) training, rehearsing, rehearsal, dry run, trial, workout | You should practise playing piano every day |
| Forms | practices | practises, practising, practised |
| Pronunciation | /ˈpɹæktɪs/ | /ˈpɹæktɪs/ |
| In writing | 115 times per million words | 3.3 times per million words |
Sources: practice and practise 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 practice and practise
practice
- 1
Repetition of an activity to improve a skill
Near-synonyms: (sometimes synonymous) training, rehearsing, rehearsal, dry run, trial, workout
- 2
USAlternative spelling of practise
- 3
An organized event for the purpose of performing such repetition
Being on a team is hard: you're always having to go to practice while everyone else is taking it easy
- 4
The state of being proficient due to repetition of a skill
I was rusty, but after a few months, I got back into practice
- 5
The ongoing pursuit of a craft or profession, particularly in medicine or the fine arts
- 6
Skilful or artful management; dexterity in contrivance or the use of means; stratagem; artifice
- 7
An easy and concise method of applying the rules of arithmetic to questions which occur in trade and business
- 8
The observance of religious duties that an spiritual institution requires of its members
practise
- 1
To repeat (an activity) as a way of improving one's skill in that activity
You should practise playing piano every day
- 2
To repeat an activity in this way
If you want to speak French well, you need to practise
- 3
To perform or observe in an habitual fashion
They gather to practise religion every Saturday
- 4
To pursue (a career, especially law, fine art or medicine)
She practised law for forty years before retiring
- 5
To put into practice; to carry out; to act upon; to commit; to execute; to do
- 6
To make use of; to employ
- 7
To teach or accustom by practice; to train
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, practice or practise?
practice appears 115 times per million words; practise 3.3 times per million words.
practice 115 times per million wordspractise 3.3 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 practice vs practise?
“practice vs practise” is searched about 1,000 times a month on Google and 60 on Bing in the United States. Google counts close variants of a query together (“practise vs practice”, “practice or practise”).
Sources: Google Ads keyword data through DataForSEO and Microsoft Advertising keyword data through DataForSEO, the average month from September 2025 to August 2026.