“Anesthetic” or “Anaesthetic”—What's the difference?

Usage by country

Where each spelling is used

Of the 12 countries below, 7 prefer “anesthetic” and 4 prefer “anaesthetic”. Usage levels are out of 100; the more common spelling in each country is in bold.

Usage level out of 100 (if available).
Country	anesthetic	anaesthetic	Preference
United States	90	10	“anesthetic”
United Kingdom	35	65	“anaesthetic”
India	54	46	“anesthetic”
Philippines	87	13	“anesthetic”
Canada	76	24	“anesthetic”
Australia	27	73	“anaesthetic”
Liberia	0	0	Not enough data
Ireland	41	59	“anaesthetic”
New Zealand	32	68	“anaesthetic”
Jamaica	62	38	“anesthetic”
Trinidad & Tobago	61	39	“anesthetic”
Guyana	100	0	“anesthetic”

Usage

Examples in context

Real sentences for each spelling. Hover an example to copy it.

“anesthetic”

…1 in 9 chance of anesthetic complications, with a 1 in…
…the woman's husband with an anesthetic and decides to dump his…
Suxamethonium chloride, an anesthetic medication
…in medicine as a local anesthetic.
…and high solubility preventing quick anesthetic induction, reactions with soda lime…
Tranquilizer gun (Anesthetic dart gun)
The application as an anesthetic turned out to be one…
…the other two drugs without anesthetic as "horrific".
…ventricles is done under local anesthetic, with access to the ventricles…
A zinc oxide, anesthetic, or antiviral cream appears to…

“anaesthetic”

…own inguinal hernia under local anaesthetic.
…medicine have guessed at the anaesthetic components of mafei powder.
…authored on the use of anaesthetic in children, titled Ethyl chloride…
…the toxic atmosphere nor the anaesthetic dose.
…intermediate restorative material and has anaesthetic and antibacterial properties.
…of benzylpenicillin and the local anaesthetic agent procaine.
…of Chesham, Buckinghamshire for Advanced anaesthetic ventilator for both paediatric and…
…to the understanding of the anaesthetic properties of chloroform had a…
Anaesthetic vaporizer
…with the use of general anaesthetic and a nasal tube for

Examples are Wikipedia snippets under the CC ShareAlike 3.0 license.

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