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rates

/ɹeɪts/noun, verb

rates is a noun meaning “Taxes, usually on property, levied by local government” (English Wiktionary, September 2026). It is spelled R-A-T-E-S and has one syllable, and it appears 76 times per million words in written English (wordfreq, 2021 data).

What does rates mean?

noun

  1. 1

    AustraliaUKTaxes, usually on property, levied by local government.

  2. 2

    informalAbbreviation of interest rates.

    Nonetheless, it did not stop the Fed from cutting rates last Thursday.

  3. 3

    plural of rate (a form of rate)

verb

  1. 1

    third-person singular simple present indicative of rate (a form of rate)

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).

How do you pronounce rates?

  • /ɹeɪts/

Rates 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: En-us-rates.ogg, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).

How common is rates?

Rates appears 76 times per million words in written English, the 1,394th 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).