A reader from Japan asked, “Which is correct, indispensable or indispensible?”
Answer
The correct spelling is indispensable, as shown in this entry from Merriam-Webster's Learner’s Dictionary online:
indispensable (adjective): extremely important and necessary
She is an indispensable [=essential] part of the team.
an indispensable employee/tool
— often + for or to:
A calculator is an indispensable tool for solving these problems.
She is indispensable to the team.
This is a good time to review the different ways that you can check your spelling in a piece of writing:
Most word processing programs, like Microsoft Word, have spell checkers built into the program. Use them! They don’t correct every mistake, and they sometimes overcorrect, so you have to use them carefully, but they help a lot.
Check the spelling of individual words in Merriam-Webster Learner’s Dictionary online. If you type in a word and you don’t find it, it may be spelled incorrectly. Try a different spelling. Also look at the words that appear in the “Search Suggestions” box when you start entering your word. One of these may be the word you are looking for.
Put the piece of writing away for a few hours or a day, and look at it again later. You may catch a typo that you didn’t see before.
Ask someone else to review it for you, and offer to do the same for them another time.
