“Minimize” or “Minimise”—What's the difference?

Usage by country

Where each spelling is used

Of the 12 countries below, 8 prefer “minimize” and 4 prefer “minimise”. Usage levels are out of 100; the more common spelling in each country is in bold.

Usage level out of 100 (if available).
Country	minimize	minimise	Preference
United States	99	1	“minimize”
United Kingdom	34	66	“minimise”
India	70	30	“minimize”
Philippines	99	1	“minimize”
Canada	96	4	“minimize”
Australia	26	74	“minimise”
Liberia	100	0	“minimize”
Ireland	43	57	“minimise”
New Zealand	36	64	“minimise”
Jamaica	89	11	“minimize”
Trinidad & Tobago	84	16	“minimize”
Guyana	100	0	“minimize”

Usage

Examples in context

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

“minimize”

…success during sustained operations, and minimize the need for pharmacological aids.
…Missouri, despite construction intended to minimize that risk.
…principle” works to maximize recycling, minimize waste, reduce consumption and ensures…
My goal is to minimize that as much as possible,…
…disposal process in order to minimize negative environmental impacts.
…following way: balanced Gray codes minimize the maximal count of bit-flips…
…in order to avoid or minimize such potential adverse effects, from…
…the projection was conceived to minimize distortion of distances everywhere with…
…dams around the work to minimize the loss of vacuum to…
…(GATT) established in 1947, to minimize tariffs and other restrictions, and…

“minimise”

…have controls that help to minimise audio feedback.
Nolan chooses to minimise the amount of computer-generated imagery…
…between two walls apart to minimise the impact of the many…
…reviews which included steps to minimise losses (ie.
…aimed to reduce smoking and minimise its lung cancer risk.
…and prevent (or at least minimise) problems arising from incompatible content…
…the footpath so as to minimise the spread of dieback which…
…require more frequent trims to minimise impact or the consideration of…
…procedure when regulating trains to minimise overall delay; there was no…
In order to minimise disruption of traffic, trains ran…

Examples are Wikipedia snippets under the CC ShareAlike 3.0 license.

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