Difference Between Disc and Disk

Have you ever been confused by which spelling of disc (or is it disk) to use as this is a word that is used in many fields and not just in geometry to refer to thin, circular geometric objects. The situation is confusing because the word processor that you are using to type accepts both the spellings But are you sure the spelling you have chosen in the context is correct? If you find it hard to tell, read on this article as it clearly explain where to make use of disc and where to use disk.

For those who are more interested in facts, it is disk that appeared on the scene much earlier in 17th century while the word disc got included in dictionaries as late as 18th century. While disk had the word risk to keep company with, disc came from discus which was a Latin word. The word with ‘k’ became popular in US while the word with ‘c’ became preferred in UK. When IBM launched a storage device, it chose k over c naming it hard disk drive. But when other companies came up with CD’s as storage device, they chose c over k. This meant that all compact discs and DVD’s were called discs and not disks.

In human anatomy, c has been preferred over k meaning one talks about slipped disc and optical disc in eyes. And in music, the person who plays music on a radio station or a dance floor in a disco is called a disc jockey and not disk jockey. Even in automobiles, we have disc brakes and not disk brakes. It is in astronomy that the word disk is used to refer to solar objects like circular debris. Thus, it is clear that in most of the instances, it is c that is preferred over k and the instances where k is used are hard drives in computers and in astronomy.