The short answer
There is no single correct English spelling. My Jewish Learning puts it plainly: like so many questions in Judaism, this one has no right answer. Dictionary.com explains that the Hebrew word is not easily transliterated into English, which is why there are more than 20 spelling variants, and it names Hanukkah and Chanukah as the two forms in widest use and acceptance.
If you want a dictionary ruling, Merriam-Webster uses Hanukkah as its headword and lists Chanukah and Hanukah as variants, marked less common. My Jewish Learning says Hanukkah is the most common English spelling, judging from Google hits among other things, and that it and many major newspapers use it. It adds that Chanukah was at one time the preferred spelling and remains so among traditionalists.
So the practical answer depends on where you are writing. Hanukkah matches the dictionary headword and the most common usage. Chanukah is just as legitimate and is the familiar choice in more traditional settings.
Why the spellings differ, letter by letter
The Hebrew word has four letters, and three of them can be written more than one way in English. My Jewish Learning walks through each one, and the table below summarizes its explanation.
| Hebrew letter | How English renders it | Why spellings differ |
|---|---|---|
| Chet (first letter) | H, Ch or Kh | No English equivalent sound; Ch stresses the guttural, H uses the nearest English letter |
| Nun (second letter) | N | Always a single n; the one letter everyone agrees on |
| Kaf with dagesh (third letter) | K or Kk | The dot marks a doubled, hard k, so many spellings use two k's |
| Hay (final letter) | H or nothing | Essentially silent in Hebrew; some add h to show it, others drop it |
The first letter causes the most disagreement. My Jewish Learning says chet is the eighth letter of the Hebrew alphabet and that its sound has no English equivalent, so transliterations use h, ch or kh. Writers who want to stress the guttural sound tend to use ch, while those who want the closest English letter choose h, which happens also to be the eighth letter of the English alphabet. Even the name of the letter has no fixed spelling: chet, het, heth or cheth.
The third letter explains the double k. It is a kaf with a dagesh, a small dot in the middle that makes it a hard k and indicates, grammatically, that the letter is doubled. The final letter, hay, is essentially silent in Hebrew pronunciation, so some writers add a final h to show it and others leave it off.
Mix those choices and you get the familiar list: Hanukkah, Chanukah, Hanukah, Chanukkah and more. None of them is wrong in this sense, since each is a different way of mapping the same four letters.
What the editors and scholars said
A 2003 Seattle Times story put the question to editors and scholars. James Lowe, then a senior editor at Merriam-Webster, told the paper that the dictionary's version was Hanukkah and that its editors decide on spellings by reading publications from around the English-speaking world and seeing how a word is most often spelled. For this word, he said, that meant Hanukkah, Chanukah and Hanukah.
The paper listed Hanukkah, Chanukah and Hanukah as the common spellings, with less familiar ones such as Khanukah and Ckanukka. Rabbi Ted Falcon of Seattle described the first sound as a throaty mix of k and h, similar to the end of the slang word yech, and said the final h is a matter of preference.
Lowe's personal choice was Chanukah, because the first sound is guttural and the ch might prompt readers to pronounce it that way. Falcon himself spelled it Chanukkah, using two k's for the doubled Hebrew letter, but noted the risk of readers pronouncing the ch as in church.
Paul Burstein, a professor in the Jewish Studies Program at the University of Washington, told the paper that people proficient in Hebrew do not insist on a single English spelling, because it is the Hebrew spelling that matters. The story also noted that the Microsoft Word spellchecker of the time recommended Hanukkah, Hanukah or Chanukah. It also reported that Google worked well with either Chanukah or Hanukkah but would ask whether you meant Hanukkah if you searched with a single k.
Transliteration versus pronunciation
The Jewish Languages project explains why there is no simple fix. Strict transliteration maps each Hebrew letter to a Latin letter so the original spelling could be reconstructed, while transcription records how a word sounds. In Jewish life, it says, the word transliteration is often used for a variety of approaches that include both phonetic (sound) and orthographical (script) considerations.
That leads to different choices for different readers. The project suggests that for an audience with little or no Hebrew, a spelling such as Hanuka or Hanooka might be easier to read than Chanukah, while Chanukah might look more Jewish in certain social and cultural circles. If showing every Hebrew letter matters, it offers Ḥanukkah, with a dot under the H for the chet. Those are two ends of a range rather than right and wrong answers, and the project frames the choice as a question of what a writer is trying to do for a particular reader. If pronunciation for newcomers matters most, it suggests Hánuka.
It also notes that most Jewish publications and organizations do not use a formal transliteration system, though some have style guides, such as using ch or ḥ for chet. That is why you will see different spellings in different synagogue newsletters, cookbooks and calendars.
Which spelling should you use?
For general writing, Hanukkah is the safe default. It is Merriam-Webster's headword, My Jewish Learning calls it the most common English spelling, and it reports that many major newspapers use it.
If you are writing for or with a community that uses Chanukah, use theirs. My Jewish Learning notes that tastes and styles change over time, and that none of these spelling choices is inherently superior. Dictionary.com treats both main forms as accepted, so either spelling can be defended with a published reference behind it.
Whichever you choose, keep it consistent within one document. A card, invitation or school notice that switches between Hanukkah and Chanukah can look like a typo even though both spellings are valid.
What the word means
Merriam-Webster traces the English word to the Hebrew ḥănukkāh, meaning dedication, and gives 1843 as its first known use in English. It defines the holiday as an 8-day Jewish festival beginning on the 25th of Kislev and commemorating the rededication of the Temple in Jerusalem after its defilement by Antiochus of Syria.
Dictionary.com, which also calls the holiday the Festival of Lights, adds that scholars disagree about how to interpret the Hebrew word, though one common interpretation is dedication. It describes the familiar customs: a different branch of a menorah illuminated on each night, latkes, which are fried potato pancakes, and the dreidel, a spinning top children play with.
Because the festival follows the Hebrew calendar, its date on the Gregorian calendar moves from year to year; Merriam-Webster's children's definition places it in November or December. For another winter observance with a fixed date, see our page on Kwanzaa dates.