English words with double letters

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

Double letters in English words: is there any letter that never occurs as a double letter? Obviously, I doubt that “q” is ever doubled, since it’s always followed by a “u”.

Here’s a list I’ve made just off the top of my head. There’s a few letters that I can’t think of having a double usage. Can anyone fill in the gaps? (And yes, there are other examples for some of these letters, but don’t need them; I’m just interested in whether we can come up with a near-complete list of examples of double letters, except for “q”.)

And, I’m only interested in common words, not proper nouns or tradenames, so “Redd Foxx” doesn’t count for either “d” or “x”.

aardvark
bubble
accomodate
addition
freeze
off
goggles
withhold (are there any other double “h” words?)
ii?
jj?
bookkeeper
all
mm?
announce
moon
happy
qq? (equivalent to dividing by zero, I think)
terrible
glass
letter
vacuum (I think this is the only double uu in English?)
vv?
ww?
xx?
yy??
blizzard

2

Lemming?

3

Thank you! I knew there had to be one for “m”

aardvark
bubble
accomodate
addition
freeze
off
goggles
withhold (are there any other double “h” words?)
ii?
jj?
bookkeeper
all
lemming
announce
moon
happy
qq? (equivalent to dividing by zero, I think)
terrible
glass
letter
vacuum (I think this is the only double uu in English?)
vv?
ww?
xx?
yy??
blizzard

4

Hope you’re savvy about skiing!

5

skiing

summer
simmer
bummer
trimming
etc.

revving? (as in “revving up their engines”?)

powwow?

6

move down

7

This one I really should have come up with, as powwows are very common in my province. (and as a lawyer doing common law, I really should have got that one as an example.

8

Giving out info like you’re not scared of being doxxed!

9

Skiing, yes, the first double-I word I thought of. And if there’s another, I can’t think of it at the moment.

The only double-J word I can think of that’s entered more-or-less common English usage is hajj.

Lots of double-Ms: command, commend, communication, committee, etc.

10

I shouldn’t have missed mm. Too early in the morning!

11

hajj…

12

It’s in Britannica, so it’s good! (I’d never seen that spelling before; today I learnt…)

And doxxing is good too.

aardvark
bubble
accomodate
addition
freeze
off
goggles
withhold (are there any other double “h” words?)
skiing
hajj
bookkeeper
all
lemming
announce
moon
happy
qq? (equivalent to dividing by zero, I think)
terrible
glass
letter
vacuum (I think this is the only double uu in English?)
savvy
powwow
doxxing
yy??
blizzard

13

Speaking of double “i”, Hawaii or Pompeii. The only double q’s I can think of are Greenlandic settlements.

14

Ah, yes, if we get into place names, that will widen the field a bit.

15

I’m just interested in common English words, not proper nouns or other languages.

16

There’s chivvy: to nag at someone to do something
There’s flivver: a cheap car

Dmitri A. Borgmann, in his books Language on Vacation and Beyond Language gives us

iiwi, a bird native to Hawaii.
hooqqa, a variant spelling of “hookah”
riqq, a small tambourine used in Egypt
yye, a 15th-16th century spelling of “eye”

He also mentions some Maltese (not English, I know) words of note:
mxaqqaq (“cracked”)
mzewwaq (“speckled”)
qzejqez (“piglet”)

17

Yeah, I use them every day!

18

not coming up in Cambridge Dictionary, and Wordnik says it’s Middle English, so I don’t think it meets my personal arbitrary definition of a common English word.

interesting word, though.

19

Thanks to this thread, I’m wondering how other languages compare to English, with respect to how difficult it would be to come up with such a list.

(Does German’s penchant for making compound words give it an advantage?)

20

sayyid

n.

1. a supposed descendant of Muhammad through his grandson Hussein.

2. an Islamic title of respect, esp. for royal personages.

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