“Honors” or “Honours”—What's the difference?

Usage by country

Where each spelling is used

Of the 12 countries below, 5 prefer “honors” and 7 prefer “honours”. Usage levels are out of 100; the more common spelling in each country is in bold.

Usage level out of 100 (if available).
Country	honors	honours	Preference
United States	100	0	“honors”
United Kingdom	21	79	“honours”
India	13	87	“honours”
Philippines	97	3	“honors”
Canada	49	51	“honours”
Australia	15	85	“honours”
Liberia	100	0	“honors”
Ireland	17	83	“honours”
New Zealand	18	82	“honours”
Jamaica	46	54	“honours”
Trinidad & Tobago	53	47	“honors”
Guyana	100	0	“honors”

Usage

Examples in context

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

“honors”

…player who earned Second-Team All-America honors in 1959-60 and First-Team honors…
…Leighton, "Street Smarts: Tiny street honors famous Tucson architect," Arizona Daily…
…military veterans, while Memorial Day honors those who have died while…
…Year and First Team All-Arena honors.
The professional honors he has received as a…
…Colorado, where he earned All-American honors.
Participating teams, results and individual honors in Class AA were as
University of Hawaii at Manoa Honors Program
Each year, the award honors a woman who has significantly…
He earned All-America honors in 1934 with a second-place…

“honours”

…graduating with a second-class BA Honours degree.
Official honours
Town (Honour's) Mill, Edenbridge
…the barons who held these honours.
…a Bachelor of Engineering with Honours in electrical, electronics and communications…
Outside Honours
He graduated with honours from Mohawk College.
…earned a Bachelor of Arts honours degree in 1970, and Doctor…
…one of the country's highest honours, by the President of Poland,…
…thirty years to obtain first-class honours in both his preliminary and…

Examples are Wikipedia snippets under the CC ShareAlike 3.0 license.

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