The -ous, -ious and -eous endings

All reduce to /əs/ — famous, serious, gorgeous. The ou is schwa, which is why it looks nothing like the ou of cloud.

Word endings

-ous / -ious / -eous SUFFIX_OUS_01

Strong rule · High reliability · Common · Advanced · Reading and spelling

• /əs/ /iəs/ -ous: famous, serious, gorgeous

Where Wiggler teaches it: Skill 13: Suffixes

Child explanation

Ous says /us/, quietly. Famous, dangerous, nervous — the ending is never the loud part.

The rule

The ending -ous is /əs/. With an i or e before it, an extra reduced syllable appears: -ious and -eous are /iəs/.

What is really going on

An adjective-forming suffix from Latin, always unstressed. The ou here is schwa, which is worth naming explicitly: children who have learned ou as /aʊ/ will otherwise try to read famous as /feɪmaʊs/.

Position in the word

• End of a word — Always word-final. For example: famous, nervous, serious.

Examples

Easy examples

famous, nervous, jealous, dangerous

More examples

curious, serious, obvious, various, delicious, precious, enormous, generous, gorgeous, courageous

Contrast pairs

• famous versus cloud — The same two letters, and nothing in common — because one is unstressed.

Teacher note

Name the schwa explicitly when teaching this. It is the clearest case of an ending whose spelling makes no sense until a child knows that unstressed vowels reduce.

Learn these first

• Schwa — any vowel letter, unstressed — The most common vowel sound in English, spelled with any vowel letter at all. It is why decoding every vowel fully produces a word nobody says.
• OU — ou — /aʊ/ in cloud is the main value, but ou also gives /ʌ/, /uː/, /ʊ/ and /ɔː/. One of the most variable teams in English.

Related rules

• Schwa — any vowel letter, unstressed — The most common vowel sound in English, spelled with any vowel letter at all. It is why decoding every vowel fully produces a word nobody says.
• OU — ou — /aʊ/ in cloud is the main value, but ou also gives /ʌ/, /uː/, /ʊ/ and /ɔː/. One of the most variable teams in English.
• The -cial and -tial endings — -cial / -tial — Both are /ʃəl/ — special, partial, official. Another place where ci and ti spell /ʃ/.
• Meaning suffixes: -ful, -less, -ness, -ment — -ful -less -ness -ment -able — Chunks of meaning on the end of a word. Unlike -ed and -ing, they leave the root almost untouched, which makes them the easiest suffixes to read.

• Previous in Word endings: The -ture ending — -ture — Pronounced /tʃər/ — picture, nature, future. The t is not /t/, which is why letter-by-letter decoding fails here.
• Next in Word endings: The -cial and -tial endings — -cial / -tial — Both are /ʃəl/ — special, partial, official. Another place where ci and ti spell /ʃ/.
• All reading rules

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