spell

spell [ -v ] [ -b ] [ -x ] [ -d hlist ] [ -s hstop ] [ file ... ]

-v
    Display all words not literally in the dictionary, and present plausible derivations from the words.

-b
    Check British spelling. This option can also be set via the SPELL environment variable.

-x
    Print every possible stem for the word.

-d hlist
    Specify an alternate dictionary file. The default dictionary is usually located at /usr/share/dict/words.

-s hstop
    Specify an alternate stop list file. Stop list contains the common words that do not need to be checked.

file ...
    One or more files to check for spelling errors. If no files are specified, spell reads from standard input.

The spell command is a Unix utility used for checking the spelling of words in text files. It reads one or more files, or standard input if no files are specified, and outputs a list of words that are not found in its dictionary. These potentially misspelled words are then printed to standard output, typically one word per line.

spell is relatively simple and relies on a system dictionary (usually /usr/share/dict/words or a similar location). It's a basic spell checker and may not catch all errors, particularly those involving correctly spelled words used in the wrong context (grammar errors). It's often used in conjunction with other tools to improve the quality of written text.

Its strength lies in its simplicity and speed for quickly identifying potentially misspelled words in a large document or set of files. While more sophisticated spell checkers are available, spell remains a useful tool for basic spell checking on Unix-like systems.

spell is a relatively basic spell checker. It is not a grammar checker and may not catch all spelling errors, particularly those involving correctly spelled words used incorrectly. The quality of the spell checking depends heavily on the completeness and accuracy of the system dictionary.

Returns 0 if no spelling errors are found. Returns 1 if spelling errors are found. Returns 2 if an error occurred while running.

SPELL: If set to 'b', it acts like the '-b' command line option, enabling British spelling.

The spell command has been a part of Unix since the early days. It was initially a simple tool to help users identify potentially misspelled words in their documents. Over time, more sophisticated spell checkers have emerged (ispell, aspell, hunspell), but spell remains useful for quick and basic spell checking due to its simplicity and availability on most Unix-like systems.

ispell(1), aspell(1), hunspell(1)