Diarrhea or diarrhoea?
diarrhea is a noun meaning “A gastrointestinal disorder characterized by frequent and very soft or watery…”; diarrhoea is a noun meaning “Alternative spelling of diarrhea”. Wiktionary gives them as spellings of the same word. In written English (wordfreq, 2021 data) diarrhea is about 3.4 times as common as diarrhoea.
What is the difference between diarrhea and diarrhoea?
| diarrhea | diarrhoea | |
|---|---|---|
| Part of speech | noun | noun |
| Meaning | CanadaUSA gastrointestinal disorder characterized by frequent and very soft or watery bowel movements CanadaUSThe watery or very soft excrement that comes from such bowel movements | CommonwealthAlternative spelling of diarrhea |
| Example | My Pampers bill is higher than your paycheck, my hands are raw from washing them every six minutes, and I do eight loads of laundry a day… | none recorded |
| Forms | diarrheas | diarrhoeas |
| Pronunciation | /ˌdaɪ.əˈɹiː.ə/ | not recorded |
| In writing | 3.5 times per million words | 1.0 times per million words |
Sources: diarrhea and diarrhoea in the English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0); written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).
Every current meaning of diarrhea and diarrhoea
diarrhea
- 1
CanadaUSA gastrointestinal disorder characterized by frequent and very soft or watery bowel movements
- 2
CanadaUSThe watery or very soft excrement that comes from such bowel movements
My Pampers bill is higher than your paycheck, my hands are raw from washing them every six minutes, and I do eight loads of laundry a day because everything we own is covered in…
diarrhoea
- 1
CommonwealthAlternative spelling of diarrhea
Source: the English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0); obsolete, archaic, dialect and rare senses left out.
Which is more common, diarrhea or diarrhoea?
diarrhea appears 3.5 times per million words; diarrhoea 1.0 times per million words.
diarrhea 3.5 times per million wordsdiarrhoea 1.0 times per million words
Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).
How many people search diarrhea vs diarrhoea?
“diarrhea vs diarrhoea” is searched about 110 times a month on Google and 10 on Bing in the United States. Google counts close variants of a query together (“diarrhoea vs diarrhea”, “diarrhea or diarrhoea”).
Sources: Google Ads keyword data through DataForSEO and Microsoft Advertising keyword data through DataForSEO, the average month from September 2025 to August 2026.