Spelling
Certains or curtains?
Curtains is the right spelling. Certains is a common misspelling of it.
CERTAINS has E where CURTAINS has U.
Why people write CERTAINS
In an unstressed syllable, A, E, I and O all sound like a quick "uh", so the ear cannot tell which one is written.
Find a related word where that syllable is stressed, and the vowel becomes clear: definite has finite in it, and grammar goes with grammatical.
How often CURTAINS is misspelled
In the web pages Google counted for its trillion-word corpus (Peter Norvig's word counts), CERTAINS appears 47 times for every 1,000 CURTAINS, about once for every 21 correct uses.
Is CERTAINS a word?
No. CERTAINS is not in NWL2023, Collins Scrabble Words or ENABLE, the word lists Scrabble and other word games use, so no word game accepts it. CURTAINS is in all three and scores 10 points in Scrabble before bonus squares.
What curtains means
noun: Hanging cloth used as a blind (especially for a window).
More words with the same mistake
The wrong vowel:
More spelling help
Commonly misspelled words, grouped by the mistake · Free printables and word games for teachers · Unscramble any letters