foss
/fɑs/noun
foss is a noun meaning “Alternative spelling of fosse” (English Wiktionary, September 2026). It is spelled F-O-S-S and has one syllable, and it appears about once in every 1 million words in written English (wordfreq, 2021 data). The plural of foss is fosses.
What does foss mean?
noun
- 1
Alternative spelling of fosse.
- 2
A waterfall.
noun
- 1
Initialism of Free and Open Source Software.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
How do you pronounce foss?
- US /fɑs/
- US /fɔs/
- UK /fɒs/
As a noun (“A waterfall”): /fɔs/.
Foss has one syllable (counted from its American pronunciation in the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary).
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Recordings: LL-Q1860_(eng)-Vealhurl-foss.wav, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).
Forms of foss
- fosses plural
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
How common is foss?
Foss appears about once in every 1 million words in written English, the 33,636th most frequent word form in the list.
Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).
Where does foss come from?
See the etymology of the corresponding lemma form.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).