aperture
/ˈæp.ɚˌt͡ʃʊɹ/noun
aperture is spelled A-P-E-R-T-U-R-E. The wrong spelling people search most is aperature: about 460 Bing searches a month in the United States (September 2025 to August 2026), about 1 in 12 of all searches for the word. Aperture is a noun meaning “A small or narrow opening, gap, slit, or hole”. The plural of aperture is apertures.
How many letters and syllables are in aperture?
| Letters | 8: A-P-E-R-T-U-R-E |
|---|---|
| Syllables | 3 (from its American pronunciation) |
| In writing | 3.0 times per million words; the 15,613th most frequent word form |
| Wrong spellings searched | 3; the most searched, aperature, about 460 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 aperture?
Aperture is spelled A-P-E-R-T-U-R-E. 3 wrong spellings are searched or written often enough to measure; together they are about 1 in 10 of the searches for aperture 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 aperture?
Aperture appears 3.0 times per million words in written English, the 15,613th 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 aperture?
- UK /ˈap.ə.t͡ʃə/
- UK /ˈap.ə.tjʊə/
- US /ˈæp.ɚˌt͡ʃʊɹ/
Aperture 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)-Vealhurl-aperture.wav, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).
Forms of aperture
- apertures plural
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
What does aperture mean?
The meanings the English Wiktionary records, quoted as written there (source below).
noun
- 1
A small or narrow opening, gap, slit, or hole.
an aperture in a wall
- 2
A hole which restricts the diameter of the lightpath through one plane in an optical system.
- 3
The diameter of such a hole which restricts the width of the lightpath through the whole system. For a telescope, this is the diameter of the objective lens.
This telescope has a 100 cm aperture.
- 4
The (typically) large-diameter antenna used for receiving and transmitting radio frequency energy containing the data used in communication satellites, especially in the geostationary belt. For a comsat, this is typically a large reflective dish antenna; sometimes called an array.
- 5
rareThe maximum angle between the two generatrices.
If the generatrix makes an angle θ to the axis, then the aperture is 2θ.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
Aperture in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese
| Language | Words |
|---|---|
| French | ouverture |
| German | Öffnung , Blende , Blendenzahl |
| Portuguese | abertura |
| Spanish | abertura, apertura, abierta |
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 aperture come from?
From late Middle English, from Latin apertūra (“an opening”), from aperiō (“to uncover, make or lay bare”) + -tūra (“-ure”, action noun suffix). Doublet of overture and apertura.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).