“Skeptic” or “Sceptic”—What's the difference?

Usage by country

Where each spelling is used

Of the 12 countries below, 6 prefer “skeptic” and 4 prefer “sceptic”. Usage levels are out of 100; the more common spelling in each country is in bold.

Usage level out of 100 (if available).
Country	skeptic	sceptic	Preference
United States	74	26	“skeptic”
United Kingdom	25	75	“sceptic”
India	51	49	“skeptic”
Philippines	88	12	“skeptic”
Canada	67	33	“skeptic”
Australia	53	47	“skeptic”
Liberia	0	0	Not enough data
Ireland	44	56	“sceptic”
New Zealand	47	53	“sceptic”
Jamaica	72	28	“skeptic”
Trinidad & Tobago	0	0	Not enough data
Guyana	0	100	“sceptic”

Usage

Examples in context

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

“skeptic”

…to Blake Smith of the Skeptic podcast MonsterTalk.
…Podcast 2013 for The Token Skeptic.
According to magician and skeptic James Randi "Kiyota's Polaroid photos…
…the Australian sceptical podcast The Skeptic Zone.
Currently he organises skeptic conferences in this domain.
…Paul Kurtz dubbed him "the skeptic's skeptic".
Alternative-medicine skeptic and physician Harriet A.
"Skeptic Magazine (19) 4.
Cartesian skepticism —named somewhat misleadingly after René…
…of the New York City Skeptics and the National Capital Area…

“sceptic”

…Richard Popkin to be a "supersceptic" who carried out the sceptic…
Ever a sceptic, in his discussions with his…
Clark is a climate change sceptic and pledged to ban the…
…volume tries to reduce overly sceptic tendencies without becoming too one-sided.
…is a self-described "climate change sceptic" and is a frequent guest…
As an outspoken climate change sceptic, Peiser became director of the…
…the programme contained the "odd sceptic too", said Krotoski was a…
…fellow molecular biologist and AIDS sceptic Peter Duesberg, with special emphasis…
…Policy Foundation, a self-proclaimed "climate sceptic" organisation.
…and other ancient texts, including sceptic Charvakas, is "promoting" mythoscience.

Examples are Wikipedia snippets under the CC ShareAlike 3.0 license.

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