Difference between Ambience and Ambiance
Key Difference: Actually, the two words are same. Other than the fact that there is a slight variation in their spellings, both ambience and ambiance have the same meaning. They both refer to the atmosphere or mood of a place.
Ambience and Ambiance sound the same, and almost look the same, except with the difference of one letter. One of them uses an e, whereas the other uses an a; so there must be some difference, right? It must be another one of those things that look the same, sound the same, but are actually different? Actually, the two words are same.
Other than the fact that there is a slight variation in their spellings, both ambience and ambiance have the same meaning. They both refer to the atmosphere or mood of a place. They can refer to anything, such as color, sound, etc. that adds to the atmosphere of a place. There is also no difference in the manner in which the two terms ambience and ambiance are used.
So where does the difference come from? Actually, ‘ambiance’ is a French word which has the same meaning. In fact, it is where the English language gets the word from. However, when it was adopted into the English language, the spelling of the word was Anglicized as ‘ambience.’ It still retained the original meaning.
While, ‘ambience’ is technically the correct way to use it in the English language, it became trendy to use French words in the English language. However, this resulted into both ambience and ambiance being directly used in the English language and neither one is wrong. Nowadays, both are accepted as correct spellings of the word.
It should be noted that ambiance is more commonly used in context of art and design, however, there is no such rule and both spelling variations should be accepted in all instances.
Comparison between Ambience and Ambiance:
|
|
Ambience |
Ambiance |
|
Definition (Oxford Dictionaries) |
The character and atmosphere of a place. |
|
|
Type |
Noun |
|
|
Etymology |
Late 19th century: from ambient + -ence, or from French ambiance, from ambiant ‘surrounding’. |
|
|
Language |
English |
French |
Reference: Oxford Dictionaries, Grammarist, Writing Explained, Grammarly Image Courtesy: youtube.com, ambiance-party.eu
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
Add new comment