Word Confusion: Lessen versus Lesson

Posted January 2, 2014 by Kathy Davie in Author Resources, Self-Editing, Word Confusions, Writing

Revised as of
4 Dec 2022

Word confusions pop out at me from everywhere. Advertising, the newspaper or magazines, hearing a word on the telly, and this one popped out at me when I was editing a client’s book, so, yep, it gets added to the mix.

Hark lest ye miss the lesson within — and lessen your own vocabulary — even worse would be if the lesson were lessened for the lack of attention paid.

Ha! Say that five times fast . . .!

Word Confusions . . .

. . . started as my way of dealing with a professional frustration with properly spelled words that were out of context in manuscripts I was editing as well as books I was reviewing. It evolved into a sharing of information with y’all. I’m hoping you’ll share with us words that have been a bête noire for you from either end.

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Lessen	Lesson
Ramsgate Wind and Air Raid Tunnels by Disco-Dan is under the CC BY 2.0 license, via Flickr. — Hmm, not having tires definitely lessens this bike’s ability to go anywhere.	Swimming Lesson by White77 is under the Pixabay License, via Pixabay.
Part of Grammar:
Verb, intransitive & transitive Third person present verb: lessens Past tense and past participle: lessened Present participle: lessening	Noun; Verb, transitive Plural for the noun: lessons Gerund: lessoning [archaic] Third person present verb: lessons [archaic] Past tense or past participle: lessoned [archaic] Present participle: lessoning [archaic]
Make or become less Diminish [Archaic] To represent as of little value To lower in status or dignity Degrade	Noun: An amount of teaching given at one time A period of learning or teaching A thing learned or to be learned by a student A thing learned by experience An occurrence, example, or punishment that serves or should serve to warn or encourage A passage from the Bible read aloud during a church service, especially either of two readings at morning and evening prayer in the Anglican Church Verb: [Archaic] Instruct or teach someone Admonish or rebuke someone
Examples:
Verb, intransitive: The pain will lessen with time. The warmth of the afternoon lessened. It was an interest that lessened as the lecture continued. Verb, transitive: The years have lessened the gap in age between us. Medication helps lessen the severity of the symptoms. We lessened our efforts as it became clear they weren’t having an effect.	Noun: I need an advanced lesson in math. That guy needs a driving lesson! The tragedy is a lesson in disappointment. Let that be a lesson to you! Verb: He was lessoned for his antics. I’ll lesson you! She was lessoning us in mechanics.
Derivatives:
Adjective: unlessened
History of the Word:
The first known use was in the 13th century.	The first known use was in the 13th century. Middle English from the Old French leçon, which is from the Latin lectio.

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C’mon, get it out of your system, bitch, whine, moan . . . which words are your pet peeves? Also, please note that I try to be as accurate as I can, but mistakes happen or I miss something. Email me if you find errors, so I can fix them . . . and we’ll all benefit!

Satisfy your curiosity about other Word Confusions on its homepage or more generally explore the index of self-editing posts. You may also want to explore Book Layout & Formatting Ideas, Formatting Tips, Grammar Explanations, Linguistics, Publishing Tips, the Properly Punctuated, Writing Ideas and Resources, and Working Your Website.

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