“Draft” or “Draught”—What's the difference?

Usage by country

Where each spelling is used

Of the 12 countries below, 12 prefer “draft” and 0 prefer “draught”. Usage levels are out of 100; the more common spelling in each country is in bold.

Usage level out of 100 (if available).
Country	draft	draught	Preference
United States	100	0	“draft”
United Kingdom	81	19	“draft”
India	87	13	“draft”
Philippines	98	2	“draft”
Canada	99	1	“draft”
Australia	91	9	“draft”
Liberia	100	0	“draft”
Ireland	88	12	“draft”
New Zealand	90	10	“draft”
Jamaica	95	5	“draft”
Trinidad & Tobago	93	7	“draft”
Guyana	93	7	“draft”

Usage

Examples in context

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

“draft”

Soon after, they added share draft checking accounts, certificates, IRAs, second…
…2014, the NIST published a draft FIPS 202 "SHA-3 Standard: Permutation-Based…
…vote against the amended Bomas Draft (called the Wako draft after…
Quebec's draft picks at the 1974 WHA…
…proceeds in three stages: the draft progressive, improved progressive, and refinement
Thick draft paper
…recalled that Garland wrote a draft very quickly and immediately asked…
Gutierrez was drafted by the Miami Marlins in…
…Dave Wilson entered the supplemental draft after losing a legal challenge…
The seventh and last "draft lottery", for conscription of 18-year-old…

“draught”

…the beach due to their draught.
…a total of using forced draught.
…a beam of and a draught of .
They had a draught of .
Maximum displacement and draught varied depending on the loadout:…
…or even consuming "a copious draught of cold water."
…for boats which have a draught exceeding .
…a beam of and a draught of .
…a beam of and a draught of between and depending on
…beam of , and a draught of .

Examples are Wikipedia snippets under the CC ShareAlike 3.0 license.

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