Elicit or illicit: which one should you use?

Below is a transcript of the video.

Elicit with an ‘e’, or illicit with an ‘i’.

Same sound, completely different meanings.

Elicit with an ‘e’ means something like “to draw out”. As in:

We created a survey to elicit people’s feedback.

To remember this spelling of a word that means “to draw out”, think of other words like extract or entice.

Illicit with an ‘i’ has a completely different meaning. This is a describing word meaning “forbidden” or “socially unacceptable”.

To remember this word, just think of the similar word - illegal. Something can be illicit without being illegal and vice versa, but they do overlap in some respects.

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