SPELL(1) SPELL(1)
NAME
spell - find spelling errors
SYNOPSIS
spell [ option ] ... [ file ] ...
DESCRIPTION
Spell looks up words from the named files (standard input
default) in a public spelling list and in a private list.
Words that occur in neither and are not plausibly derivable
from words in the public list are placed on the standard
output.
Spell ignores most troff, tbl, pic, and eqn(1) construc-
tions. It understands these options:
-b check British spelling
-v print all words not literally in the spelling list,
with derivations
-x print, marked with `=', every stem tried in both stop
list and spelling list
The private list, by default $HOME/lib/spelldict, is
arranged one word per line.
Pertinent auxiliary files may be specified by environment
variables, indicated below with their default settings.
Copies of all output are accumulated in the history file, if
it is writable. The stop list filters out misspellings
(e.g. thier=thy-y+ier) that would otherwise pass.
FILES
D_SPELL=/usr/dict/hlist[ab]: hashed public lists, American &
British
S_SPELL=/usr/dict/hstop: hashed stop list
H_SPELL=/usr/dict/spellhist: history file
A_SPELL=$HOME/lib/spelldict: private list
P_SPELL=/usr/lib/spell: the main routine
deroff(1), sort(1), tee(1), comm(1)
SEE ALSO
dict(7)
BUGS
A malicious opponent can defeat spell's heuristics for word
derivation, but this rarely happens in practice.
The spelling list's coverage is uneven; in particular biol-
ogy, medicine, and chemistry are covered very lightly. New
SPELL(1) SPELL(1)
installations will probably wish to monitor the output for
several months to gather local additions.
British spelling was done by an American.