anaesthesia vs anesthesia (2025)

According to the New Oxford Dictionary of English, anaesthesia is the British spelling, while anesthesia is the American version. Other dictionaries I referred to do not differentiate between the two words. So I wonder whether the Oxford Dictionary is correct in stating the above.

Do native speakers make a distinction between both spellings?

Thanks.

The WR Collins dictionary describes "anesthesia" as the usual US spelling of anaesthesia.
The two WR Random House dictionaries list both spellings without qualification.
I spell the word "anaesthesia".

cross-posted - I agree with heypresto

I'd spell it like that if I could be bothered to find a 'æ' somewhere.

I'd happily bung one in 'encyclopædia' too.

heypresto said:

I'd spell it like that if I could be bothered to find a 'æ' somewhere.

I'd happily bung one in 'encyclopædia' too.

Click to expand...

(I finally learnt about shortcuts on my iPad and when I type xxx it shows Ə ə æ and I select the appropriate one. Learnt, spelt and bung are other examples of BE preferences)

This is off the website of the Boston Children's Hospital (which is in the U.S.). It's about Doctor David Waisel, who was recently testifying in a legal case and how I found his name in a web search.

Senior Associate in Perioperative Anesthesia, Department of Anesthesiology, Critical Care and Pain Medicine [at BCH]
Associate Professor of Anaesthesia, Harvard Medical School

If you go to the Boston Children's Hospital website you'll see they have a Department of Anesthesiology and if you go to Harvard Medical School's website you'll find they have an Anaesthesia department.

They both have a department for pediatrics. I think you're far more likely to see someone in the U.S. spell anaesthesia with an ae than you are ever to see anyone spell pediatrics that way.

kentix said:

This is off the website of the Boston Children's Hospital (which is in the U.S.). It's about Doctor David Waisel, who was recently testifying in a legal case and how I found his name in a web search.

Senior Associate in Perioperative Anesthesia, Department of Anesthesiology, Critical Care and Pain Medicine [at BCH]
Associate Professor of Anaesthesia, Harvard Medical School

If you go to the Boston Children's Hospital website you'll see they have a Department of Anesthesiology and if you go to Harvard Medical School's website you'll find they have an Anaesthesia department.

They both have a department for pediatrics. I think you're far more likely to see someone in the U.S. spell anaesthesia with an ae than you are ever to see anyone spell pediatrics that way.

Click to expand...

Harvard is definitely the one out of step in the US on that Just like anyone using pediatrics would be marked as AE

Collins: paediatrics, chiefly us pediatrics /ˌpiːdɪˈætrɪks/

Elaine Koh said:

Do native speakers make a distinction between

both

the two spellings?

Click to expand...

You mean "ae" vs. "e"? Not very much, in the US.

Almost every English word with "ae" in it is a word from ancient Greek, which is one of the languages that scientists have used for many years. You see these words mostly in medicine. Changing "ae" to "e" is modern, so "ae" is more traditional.

You sometimes see 'æ' in English, instead of "ae", so there are 3 common spellings: "ae", "e", and "æ".