annoying
/əˈnɔɪ.ɪŋ/adjective, noun, verb
annoying is spelled A-N-N-O-Y-I-N-G. The wrong spelling people search most is anoying: about 100 Bing searches a month in the United States (September 2025 to August 2026), about 1 in 18 of all searches for the word. Annoying is an adjective meaning “Causing irritation or annoyance; troublesome; vexatious”.
How many letters and syllables are in annoying?
| Letters | 8: A-N-N-O-Y-I-N-G |
|---|---|
| Syllables | 3 (from its American pronunciation) |
| In writing | 25 times per million words; the 3,612th most frequent word form |
| Wrong spellings searched | 2; the most searched, anoying, about 100 Bing searches a month (all of them) |
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).
How do you spell annoying?
Annoying is spelled A-N-N-O-Y-I-N-G. 2 wrong spellings are searched or written often enough to measure; together they are about 1 in 15 of the searches for annoying in either form.
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). Wrong spellings are taken from Wiktionary entries tagged "misspelling" and its obsolete or nonstandard forms, Wikipedia's Lists of common misspellings and the codespell dictionary, then measured. The proofreader's marks show the change that corrects each one.
How common is annoying?
Annoying appears 25 times per million words in written English, the 3,612th 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 annoying?
- /əˈnɔɪ.ɪŋ/
Annoying has 3 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: LL-Q1860_(eng)-Persent101-annoying.wav, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).
Forms of annoying
- more annoying comparative
- most annoying superlative
- annoyings plural
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
What does annoying mean?
The meanings the English Wiktionary records, quoted as written there (source below).
adjective
- 1
Causing irritation or annoyance; troublesome; vexatious.
Having flies in your bedroom when you're trying to sleep is really annoying.
verb
- 1
present participle and gerund of annoy
noun
- 1
rareThat which annoys; an annoyance.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
Annoying in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese
In the sense causing irritation or annoyance:
| Language | Words |
|---|---|
| French | agaçant, irritant, énervant, ennuyeux, ennuyant |
| German | ärgerlich, lästig |
| Portuguese | irritante, chato |
| Spanish | molesto, fastidioso, molestoso, lacroso, chinchoso, cargante |
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 annoying come from?
From annoy + -ing.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).