“Penalize” or “Penalise”—What's the difference?

Usage by country

Where each spelling is used

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

Usage level out of 100 (if available).
Country	penalize	penalise	Preference
United States	97	3	“penalize”
United Kingdom	21	79	“penalise”
India	52	48	“penalize”
Philippines	100	0	“penalize”
Canada	79	21	“penalize”
Australia	22	78	“penalise”
Liberia	0	0	Not enough data
Ireland	0	100	“penalise”
New Zealand	0	100	“penalise”
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.

“penalize”

…that it was unfair to penalize people for developing their land.
…the hippo king threatens to penalize Oswald.
As fouls in sailboat racing penalize the offending boat but do…
…law was not intended to penalize teenage partners.
Motorsports using standing starts usually penalize drivers who "jump the start"…
…gone so far as to penalize Joe two points for hitting…
Palauan authorities did not penalize potential trafficking victims for illegal…
…programs suffer from defects that "penalize families for getting ahead" and…
…variants exist that award or penalize according to certain behaviors; they…
The new penalties would penalize traders who fail to cover…

“penalise”

The stewards elected not to penalise Senna after examining a video…
Referees may not penalise some of these infringements if…
The current regulations appear to penalise pensioners residing in "frozen" countries,…
…at the umpires’ decision to penalise them for ball tampering.
…UEFA's disciplinary committee may additionally penalise players for offences unpunished by…
…extra time, he did not penalise a foul by the Brazil…
…available to the referee to penalise a team who commit deliberate
…Royal Belgian Football Association to penalise the team by not allowing…
…be alleviated by making employers penalise unmarried and childless workers; this…
…pension reform bill that would penalise early retirement and set the…

Examples are Wikipedia snippets under the CC ShareAlike 3.0 license.

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