“Modernize” or “Modernise”—What's the difference?

Usage by country

Where each spelling is used

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

Usage level out of 100 (if available).
Country	modernize	modernise	Preference
United States	98	2	“modernize”
United Kingdom	15	85	“modernise”
India	70	30	“modernize”
Philippines	100	0	“modernize”
Canada	91	9	“modernize”
Australia	18	82	“modernise”
Liberia	0	0	Not enough data
Ireland	24	76	“modernise”
New Zealand	0	100	“modernise”
Jamaica	0	0	Not enough data
Trinidad & Tobago	0	0	Not enough data
Guyana	0	0	Not enough data

Usage

Examples in context

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

“modernize”

…as the Roman Catholic Church, modernize administration and promote economic measures…
…a risk based approach to modernize pharmaceutical manufacturing and regulation.
…technology, emphasizing how combatants must modernize to preserve their battle worthiness.
…government, and Philip's efforts to modernize and centralize the devolved-medieval government…
He also took steps to modernize the domain's military by introducing…
…having an elaborate plan to modernize the rural areas.
…decided against allocating funds to modernize Duguesclin.
They sought to modernize Kingo's hymnal, primarily by removing…
As the hanbok continues to modernize, opinions are divided on the
…Medical Institute to advance and modernize the university's chemistry curriculum.

“modernise”

…West began to expand and modernise its fleet of full-size single…
…the Verhofstadt I Government to modernise the federal administration.
…known as Progressives) sought to modernise the country along Western and…
…part of its attempt to modernise darts.
…Millennium Project, which sought to modernise the Gosport waterfront in celebration…
In the late 1990s to modernise and to make the church…
…number of important changes to modernise Quebec society after Maurice Duplessis's,…
…a programme to enhance and modernise the Soviet Union's development of…
…of the project alone, to modernise the Kuçovë Air Base."
…part of an effort to modernise the Empire, and was assigned…

Examples are Wikipedia snippets under the CC ShareAlike 3.0 license.

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