Commonly Confused Words: All together vs. Altogether

Submitted by Judy Hanning on Sat, 2017-01-14 17:00
‘All together’ and ‘altogether’ are commonly confused words. All together means “all in the same place” or “all at the same time”. Altogether means “completely” or “on the whole”. For example, you would say “I’m so happy the family is all together today.” or “Altogether, being with my family makes me happy.”

There are many commonly misused words in which people misunderstand their spelling or their meaning. This list will shed some light on words to brush up on.

You can tell the difference between them by remembering the following. Altogether is one “complete” word, which should remind you that it means “completely”. Don’t forget that you need both the words all and together “at the same time” to spell all together! Now you won’t forget how to tell the difference between altogether and all together.
Altogether comes from ‘altogedere’ which is a stronger form of the word ‘all’ that dates back to the early thirteenth century. The word has been used to mean ‘a whole’ since the 1660s.
~ Spellzone

Key Takeaways:

1
All together and altogether are two commonly confused words that sound alike but mean two different things.
2
Remember that altogether is an adverb that means completely.
3
All together is defined as “all at the same time” or “all in the same place.”
Read the full article here:
https://www.spellzone.com/blog/post.cfm?title=Commonly_Confused_Words%3A_All_together_vs._Altogether