adieu
/əˈdju/interjection, noun
adieu is spelled A-D-I-E-U: 5 letters and 2 syllables. It appears about once in every 1 million words in written English, the 35,748th most frequent word form (wordfreq, 2021 data). As an interjection, adieu means “Said to wish a final farewell; goodbye” (English Wiktionary, September 2026).
How many letters and syllables are in adieu?
| Letters | 5: A-D-I-E-U |
|---|---|
| Syllables | 2 (from its American pronunciation) |
| In writing | about once in every 1 million words; the 35,748th most frequent word form |
| Wrong spellings searched | none measured in search |
| Pairs people search | |
| Rhymes with |
Sources: letters and syllables from the English Wiktionary's hyphenation or pronunciation and the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary; written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media); Bing searches in the United States: the average month from September 2025 to August 2026 (Microsoft Advertising keyword data through DataForSEO, read September 30, 2026); rhymes and same-letter words are computed by PlainSpell from its own word list.
How common is adieu?
Adieu appears about once in every 1 million words in written English, the 35,748th 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).
How do you pronounce adieu?
- US /əˈdju/
- US /əˈdu/
- UK /əˈdjuː/
Adieu has 2 syllables (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-adieu.ogg, En-us-adieu.oga, En-us-adieu_2.oga, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).
Words people confuse with adieu
Word pairs people search, with the monthly searches for “a vs b” (G: Google, B: Bing, United States).
Sources: Google and Bing searches (September 2025 to August 2026, through DataForSEO); English Wiktionary (homophones, alternative spellings).
What rhymes with adieu?
The 12 most written words on PlainSpell end in the same sounds as adieu from its last stressed vowel (/u/):
Computed by PlainSpell from the pronunciations in the English Wiktionary (dump of September 2, 2026): a rhyme shares every sound from the last stressed vowel to the end; ordered by written frequency (wordfreq 3.1).
Forms of adieu
- adieux plural
- adieus plural
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
What does adieu mean?
The meanings the English Wiktionary records, quoted as written there (source below).
interjection
- 1
Said to wish a final farewell; goodbye.
noun
- 1
A farewell, a goodbye; especially a fond farewell, or a lasting or permanent farewell.
We bid our final adieus to our family, then boarded the ship, bound for America.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
Adieu in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese
In the sense a farewell:
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Translations are Wiktionary's, by sense; a linked word has its own PlainSpell page.
Where does adieu come from?
From Middle English adieu also adew, adewe, adue, from Old French adieu (“to God”), a shortening of a Dieu vous comant (“I commend you to God”), from Medieval Latin ad Deum (“to God”). Doublet of adios.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).