The word I’ve never written

My mind is reeling right now because I used a word in print that, until today, I had only said out loud. I use this word verbally all the time; it’s not an unusual word. But for some reason, I’ve never written it.

I was writing an email, and I went to type this word when I realized I didn’t know how to spell it. Now, I like to learn words, and I believe in accurate spelling, but I had no idea where to start.

I was pretty sure the word started with “c,” so I went to Google and typed in a similar word and looked at the synonyms. Nope, the word wasn’t there.

Luckily, Google will autofill, so I started typing the word, hoping that Google would fill in the blanks. It gave me a word I had never seen before that looked totally wrong. Surely that is not how that word is spelled?

I read the definition, and it turned out that this weird-looking word was the one I was looking for. I’m glad I can spell this common word now, but it still looks wrong. I have written over a million words (and that is just from counting my stories, not including letters, homework, and blog posts), and I still can’t believe I never wrote this word. I’m going to use it until it becomes normal to me.

If this were a podcast, I would have told you the word already because I would just say it. This was more difficult in a blog. The word I’ve never written before today is:

coax /kōks/verb: gently and persistently persuade (someone) to do something.”the trainees were coaxed into doing boring work

Google.com