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Stationery or stationary?

A stationer sells stationery (writing paper, envelopes and other office materials).

  • You’ll find some envelopes in the stationery cupboard.

Stationary is an adjective meaning “not moving”.

  • The car hit a stationary bus.

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This entry was posted on Tuesday, December 11th, 2007 at 1:03 am and is filed under Vocabulary. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

6 Responses to “Stationery or stationary?”

  1. Hung Says:
    December 11th, 2007 at 8:02 am

    Interesting! A stationary lorry loaded up stationary is parking in front of a stationary mall.
    P/s: do English say stationary mall?
    thanks

    Hung

  2. english Says:
    December 12th, 2007 at 3:07 am

    This would make more sense:

    A stationary lorry loading up stationery is parked in front of the stationery mall.

  3. english Says:
    December 12th, 2007 at 3:10 am

    > do English say stationary mall?

    If you mean a mall that is not moving, yes, we could say “stationary mall”. But almost by definition malls are stationary, so it is highly unlikely that we would use this expression.

    A “stationery mall” is very feasible: a mall where stationery is sold; a mall full of stationers.

  4. Hung Says:
    December 12th, 2007 at 8:06 am

    Thanks, english. That is what I meant.

  5. redrdr Says:
    January 9th, 2008 at 3:50 am

    The way I was taught to keep these straight is stationery has an ER just like papER.

  6. english Says:
    January 9th, 2008 at 12:14 pm

    Thanks redrdr. That’s a great way to remember it.

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