Last reviewed on 11 September 2026.
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Neither is, strictly speaking. This article explains where the two spellings come from, which one the profession uses and why, and which you should put on a CV, a clinic board or a web page. Because British spelling is the convention in Indian medical writing, it also covers a few related spelling pairs that cause the same kind of doubt.
Is it dietitian or dietician?
Both are correct English, but dietitian is the preferred and professional spelling. Dietician is a variant that remains in wide use, particularly in India. If you want a single rule, use dietitian, because it is the form every major professional body and credential uses. Nobody who reads dietician will think you cannot spell. In professional documents, though, the variant can look slightly out of step with the very field you are writing about, and that is a small cost worth avoiding.
Which spelling do professional bodies use?
Dietitian, almost without exception. In India the Indian Dietetic Association awards the Registered Dietitian (RD) credential. In the United Kingdom the British Dietetic Association uses dietitian throughout its materials. In the United States the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics, through its credentialing agency, awards the Registered Dietitian Nutritionist title. Dietitians of Canada and Dietitians Australia carry the spelling in their own names, and the World Health Organization uses dietitian in its English documents. When a profession has settled its own title this firmly, following it is simply accurate writing.
Where does the word dietitian come from?
From diet, which reached English through Old French and Latin from the Greek diaita, meaning a way of life or a regimen. The original sense was broader than food: a diaita covered how a person lived, ate, exercised and slept. Dietitian was formed around the middle of the nineteenth century by adding the ending -itian to diet, on the pattern of physician. The spelling with a t keeps the final letter of diet visible, so the word reads as diet plus a suffix, which is the usual argument made in its favour.
Why does dietician look more natural to many people?
Because English has a large family of words ending in -ician: musician, physician, magician, politician, electrician, mathematician. In each, the root ends in -ic (music, physic, magic, politic, electric, mathematic), and the ending -ian is added to it. Diet has no -ic, so dietician is formed by analogy with the sound of those words rather than with their structure. The analogy is strong, which is why the variant has survived alongside the preferred form for a long time and why dictionaries record it.
Do dictionaries accept dietician?
Yes. Major dictionaries, Oxford and Merriam-Webster among them, list dietitian as the main form and give dietician as an accepted variant. Neither treats dietician as a misspelling. The difference is one of preference and professional convention, not of right and wrong. That puts the pair in a different category from genuine errors such as dietition or deititian, which turn up in hurried job advertisements and should be corrected in anything you write or sign yourself.
Why do Indian job ads and courses use dietician?
There is no definitive explanation, but the pattern is easy to see. Many Indian hospital posts, government recruitment notices, private job listings and course titles use dietician, and the spelling passes from one document to the next. The -ician ending feels natural to readers who learned English through words like physician and technician. Indian official writing is not consistent on the point either, so both forms appear, sometimes within a single organisation. None of this makes dietician wrong. It does make it a local habit rather than the profession's own choice.
Is this a British and American spelling difference?
No, and this is a common misunderstanding. British and American professional English both prefer dietitian, so the choice is not a matter of following one side of the Atlantic. That makes the pair unusual among health words. Many other medical terms do divide along British and American lines, and Indian writers meet both versions constantly because so many textbooks, journals and websites they read are American. The next section covers the pairs that most often cause doubt in Indian writing.
Which other medical spellings trip people up in India?
Indian medical and academic writing largely follows British spelling, though American textbooks have made the other forms familiar. So paediatrics keeps its a, where American texts write pediatrics. A patient is anaemic in British spelling and anemic in American, and the British haemoglobin likewise keeps an a that the American form drops. Coeliac and celiac, and caesarean and cesarean, follow the same pattern. In each pair the British form is the conventional one in Indian clinical writing and exam papers, and it is the spelling used across this site.
Which spelling should you use on a CV?
Use dietitian in your job title and description, and spell your degree exactly as your university printed it, even if that means dietician appears in the degree name. Consistency matters more than the choice: a CV that switches between the two looks careless. If a job advertisement uses dietician, it is reasonable to echo the employer's spelling once in your cover letter, since some applicant tracking software matches words literally. Never write Registered Dietitian unless you hold the credential. Structuring the rest of the document is covered in the guide to a nutritionist CV.
Settling it across your own documents
Consistency does more work here than the choice itself, and this order keeps you out of both traps.
Start with whether the word fits you
In India dietitian reads as a clinical title, implying a dietetics degree and hospital training. If your training is in nutrition, nutritionist is the accurate word.
Then pick the spelling
Dietitian, since that is the form every major professional body and credential uses, and no reader will think less of it.
Leave your degree exactly as printed
Copy the university wording even where it says dietician. A degree name is quoted, not corrected.
Hold one spelling through the document
A CV that switches between the two reads as careless, which is the only way this question can actually cost you anything.
Echo the advert once if you are answering one
Some applicant tracking software matches words literally, so using the employer's spelling once in a covering letter is reasonable.
Keep the credential honest
Registered Dietitian goes on paper only if you hold it, however the rest of the page is spelled.
Which spelling belongs on a clinic board or visiting card?
Dietitian, because it matches the profession's own usage and the credential names patients may meet elsewhere. The more important question is whether the word describes you at all. In India the title dietitian usually implies a dietetics degree and hospital training, and a board that says dietitian above someone without that background misleads patients whichever way it is spelled. If your training is in nutrition rather than clinical dietetics, nutritionist is the accurate word. Where the line between the two usually falls is explained on the nutritionist vs dietitian page.
Does Google treat dietitian and dietician as the same word?
In practice, largely yes. Google's search systems recognise common spelling variants and treat them as closely related, so a search for a dietician in Kolkata tends to return much the same results as one for a dietitian in Kolkata. You therefore do not need to repeat both spellings across a web page or force the variant into headings to be found. Write dietitian throughout, and if you want to acknowledge the variant, one natural mention is enough, as on this page. Clear, accurate content counts for far more in search than the letter you choose.
How is the rest of the word family spelled?
The related words keep the t, and they have no competing spellings. Dietetics is the science and practice of applying nutrition to feeding people, dietetic is its adjective, as in the Indian Dietetic Association, and dietary means relating to diet, as in dietary fibre. Dietitian is pronounced dye-uh-TISH-un, with the stress on the third syllable, and dietician is pronounced in exactly the same way. Since the ear cannot tell them apart, the two spellings have coexisted for generations without anyone mistaking what either one means.
Does a nutrition qualification let you call yourself a dietitian?
That depends on the qualification, since India does not yet regulate either title in practice. Employers and patients read dietitian as a clinical title, and the Registered Dietitian credential requires a degree pathway and a hospital internship; RD registration in India sets out the route. NNWA's one-year PG Diploma in Nutrition, Dietetics and Public Health is meant for graduates and working professionals, costs 59,999 rupees, reduced from 79,999, with EMI from 6,999 rupees a month, and carries a Medhavi Skills University certificate alongside NNWA's. It is not a dietetics degree and does not confer RD status.
The short answer
Dietitian and dietician are both correct, and both are in the dictionary. Dietitian is the spelling of the profession: the Indian Dietetic Association, the British Dietetic Association, the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics and the WHO all use it. Dietician is a respectable variant that is very common in Indian job listings. Use dietitian on your CV, your board and your website, spell your degree as it was printed, and put more care into whether the title fits your training than into the letter in its middle.