If you've typed intergrate and felt uneasy about it, your instinct is right. The correct spelling is integrate, with no second "r." The misspelling intergrate is one of those errors that feels completely natural because of how the word sounds when spoken quickly, but it doesn't appear in any standard dictionary. Here's exactly what's happening and how to get it right every time.
The correct spelling: integrate
Integrate is a verb meaning to combine parts into a whole, to bring groups together, or to incorporate something into a larger system. It comes from the Latin integrare, meaning "to make whole," which in turn comes from integer, the same root that gives English the mathematical term for a whole number. The word entered English in the 17th century and has carried that same core sense ever since.
Spelled out: i-n-t-e-g-r-a-t-e. Eight letters. No second "r." The word integrate contains a "g" directly before the "r," and that pairing is what catches people out.
Why intergrate feels right
The problem is pronunciation. When English speakers say "integrate" quickly, the mouth produces something close to "in-ter-grate." That "ter" sound emerges because the tongue bounces between "n" and "g" through the unstressed middle syllable, and the brain transcribes what it hears rather than what the spelling actually contains. The same phenomenon produces suprise for surprise, discreet misused for discrete, and dozens of other common errors.
It also doesn't help that English has plenty of real words where "inter-" appears as a prefix: interrupt, interpret, interchange, interface. That pattern is so familiar that the brain applies it by analogy, producing intergrate as though "grate" were the root and "inter-" were the prefix. It isn't. The root is the Latin integer, so the word is built as "in-" plus "teg-" plus "-rate," not as a prefix sitting on top of a separate English word.
This kind of sound-driven spelling error is well-documented in English. Like the confusion explored in our article on perogative vs prerogative, the false form exists because the mouth produces a slightly different sound than the letters on the page would predict.
How to remember the correct spelling
The fastest memory trick: think of the word integer. If you know that 4 is an integer (a whole number), you already know the root of integrate. Both words share the spelling i-n-t-e-g. An integer is whole. To integrate is to make whole. Same root, same spelling pattern. No second "r" in integer, no second "r" in integrate.
Alternatively, break the word into syllables as it is actually written: in + te + grate. That middle syllable is "te," not "ter." Say it slowly a few times and the correct form becomes instinctive.
Common contexts where the error appears
Integrate turns up constantly in professional and academic writing, which means the misspelling does too. The most common problem contexts are:
- Technology writing: "The system will integrate with your existing software."
- Social and political writing: "Policies designed to integrate communities."
- Education: "Schools that integrate arts into the core curriculum."
- Mathematics and science: "To integrate the function over the given interval."
In every one of those sentences, intergrate is wrong. Spellcheckers usually catch it, but not always, particularly in environments with custom dictionaries or relaxed autocorrect settings.
Related word forms to check
The same error can travel into related words. Watch for these correctly spelled forms:
- Integration (not intergration)
- Integrated (not intergrated)
- Integrating (not intergrating)
- Integrates (not intergrates)
- Integrative (not intergrative)
Once you correct the stem, all the inflected forms correct themselves automatically. Get "integrate" right and the rest follow.
A note on disintegrate
The prefix dis- attaches to "integrate" to form disintegrate, meaning to break apart. The same logic applies: dis-in-te-grate, not disintergrate. The "dis-" prefix sits before the full word "integrate," so if "integrate" has no second "r," neither does "disintegrate."
Spelling errors that spread across a word family are worth flagging because writers who correct one form sometimes leave the others untouched. Run a search across your document for "tergrat" and you'll catch every variant at once.
Quick reference
Correct: integrate, integration, integrated, integrating
Incorrect: intergrate, intergration, intergrated, intergrating
The rule is simple. The root is integer. No second "r" appears there, and none belongs in integrate either. This is the same kind of sound-drift that produces misspellings like congradulations instead of congratulations, where the spoken word and the written word have quietly drifted apart. Once you spot the Latin root underneath, the correct form is obvious, and it stays obvious.