appalling
ap·pall·ing/əˈpɔːlɪŋ/adjective, verb
appalling is spelled A-P-P-A-L-L-I-N-G, 3 syllables: ap·pall·ing. The wrong spelling people search most is appaling: about 170 Bing searches a month in the United States (September 2025 to August 2026), about 2 in 10 of all searches for the word. Appalling is an adjective meaning “Horrifying and astonishing”.
How many letters and syllables are in appalling?
| Letters | 9: A-P-P-A-L-L-I-N-G |
|---|---|
| Syllables | 3: ap·pall·ing |
| In writing | 2.9 times per million words; the 15,798th most frequent word form |
| Wrong spellings searched | 2; the most searched, appaling, about 170 Bing searches a month (all of them) |
Sources: letters and syllables from the English Wiktionary's hyphenation or pronunciation; 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 appalling?
Appalling is spelled A-P-P-A-L-L-I-N-G. 2 wrong spellings are searched or written often enough to measure; together they are about 2 in 10 of the searches for appalling 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 appalling?
Appalling appears 2.9 times per million words in written English, the 15,798th 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 appalling?
- /əˈpɔːlɪŋ/
Appalling has 3 syllables, split ap·pall·ing in writing.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Recordings: LL-Q1860_(eng)-Persent101-appalling.wav, LL-Q1860_(eng)-Wodencafe-appalling.wav, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).
Forms of appalling
- more appalling comparative
- most appalling superlative
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
What does appalling mean?
The meanings the English Wiktionary records, quoted as written there (source below).
adjective
- 1
Horrifying and astonishing.
That was an appalling waste of money.
- 2
Extremely unfavorable; terrible.
verb
- 1
present participle and gerund of appall
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
Appalling in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese
In the sense That appalls/appals or appall/appal:
| Language | Words |
|---|---|
| French | épouvantable, effroyable |
| German | entsetzlich, erschreckend |
| Portuguese | apavorante, assombroso, pavoroso |
| Spanish | terrible, horrible, horroroso, consternante, abrumador, apabullante |
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 appalling come from?
By surface analysis, appall + -ing.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).