“Colonizing” or “Colonising”—What's the difference?

Usage by country

Where each spelling is used

Of the 12 countries below, 6 prefer “colonizing” and 3 prefer “colonising”. Usage levels are out of 100; the more common spelling in each country is in bold.

Usage level out of 100 (if available).
Country	colonizing	colonising	Preference
United States	98	2	“colonizing”
United Kingdom	33	67	“colonising”
India	50	50	No clear preference
Philippines	100	0	“colonizing”
Canada	95	5	“colonizing”
Australia	33	67	“colonising”
Liberia	0	0	Not enough data
Ireland	100	0	“colonizing”
New Zealand	28	72	“colonising”
Jamaica	72	28	“colonizing”
Trinidad & Tobago	100	0	“colonizing”
Guyana	0	0	Not enough data

Usage

Examples in context

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

“colonizing”

It is capable of colonizing algae and marsh grasses.
…join the new queen in colonizing her nest until new generations…
…sylvaticum is an invasive species colonizing new areas and outcompeting native
…Robot Cities everywhere, invading and colonizing every planet they can find.
…one of the first species colonizing degraded or altered environments in…
…typically sent out on such colonizing expeditions.
Other reasons for colonizing space include economic interests, long-term…
…main strongholds in Mindanao, supporting colonizing efforts in the south of…
…Anglo-Canadian government and its local colonizing agents.
Several colonizing companies formed under this law.

“colonising”

After colonising a patron estate and a…
…same time, the Dutch were colonising the west of the island…
…policy of not becoming a colonising force in the world.
…finding a new habitat and colonising a new territory, at the…
…visited England, where he advocated colonising the north of Ireland with…
Colonising multiple villages promoted a Patil…
…just before the process of colonising Ulster with loyal Protestant subjects,…
…the former nobility, but through colonising territories to the east.
…our own virtual worlds and colonising the amorphous world of cyberspace."
…a time-series of plant species colonising a new habitat; early successional…

Examples are Wikipedia snippets under the CC ShareAlike 3.0 license.

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