Spelling Of 'pursuant'

[007]

Does this word even exist? I noticed that in the U.S., but also in England (e.g. Birmingham) the spelling

p e r s u a n t

is often used for the word 'pursuant'.

However, checking the spelling in a dictionary I couldn't find the spelling of the word with 'e'.

So, which spelling is correct: 'pursuant', 'persuant', or both?

Edited November 8, 2007 by 7

[PeaceBlondie]

Agreed, that the word spelled with an e simply does not exist. It is a wrong spelling, AFAIK. But it may catch on and become acceptable. There is so much bad spelling nowadays, that we're getting used to it.

[mopenyang]

Does this word even exist? I noticed that in the U.S., but also in England (e.g. Birmingham) the spelling

p e r s u a n t

is often used for the word 'pursuant'.

However, checking the spelling in a dictionary I couldn't find the spelling of the word with 'e'.

So, which spelling is correct: 'pursuant', 'persuant', or both?

Persuant exists as a legitimate word only in the minds of poor or lazy spellers.

[Farma]

It’s interesting to note a search for the word PERSUANT shows the “E” version used on many legal and university sites and documents.

[Tywais]

If you do a google search using the two spellings plus the word "definition", persuant gets 3940 hits, pursuant 2,030,000 hits. Plus my Firefox spelling checker doesn't like the first one.

Just using persuant > 47,800 hits pursuant > 14,900,000 hits. Seems a lot of bad spellers out there.