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PlainSpell

arch

/ɑɹt͡ʃ/noun, verb, adjective

arch is spelled A-R-C-H: 4 letters and one syllable. It appears 10 times per million words in written English, the 6,884th most frequent word form (wordfreq, 2021 data). People search “arc vs arch” about 1,900 times a month (Google, United States). As a noun, arch means “An inverted U shape” (English Wiktionary, September 2026). The plural of arch is arches or archs..

How many letters and syllables are in arch?

Letters4: A-R-C-H
Syllables1 (from its American pronunciation)
In writing10 times per million words; the 6,884th most frequent word form
Wrong spellings searchednone measured in search
Pairs people search
Rhymes with
Same letters

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 arch?

Arch appears 10 times per million words in written English, the 6,884th 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 arch?

  • US /ɑɹt͡ʃ/
  • UK /ɑːt͡ʃ/
  • US /ɑɹk/

Arch 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-arch.ogg, En-us-arc.ogg, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).

Words people confuse with arch

Word pairs people search, with the monthly searches for “a vs b” (G: Google, B: Bing, United States).

arc vs arch1,900 G

Sources: Google and Bing searches (September 2025 to August 2026, through DataForSEO); English Wiktionary (homophones, alternative spellings).

What rhymes with arch?

4 words on PlainSpell end in the same sounds as arch from its last stressed vowel (/ɑɹtʃ/):

Spelled with the same letters in another order: char, rach.

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 arch

  • arches plural, present, singular, he/she/it
  • arching participle, present
  • arched participle, past
  • archer comparative
  • archest superlative
  • archi-
  • archo-
  • more arch. comparative
  • most arch. superlative
  • archs. plural

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

What does arch mean?

The meanings the English Wiktionary records, quoted as written there (source below).

noun

  1. 1

    An inverted U shape.

  2. 2

    An arch-shaped arrangement of trapezoidal stones, designed to redistribute downward force outward.

  3. 3

    An architectural element having the shape of an arch

  4. 4

    Any place covered by an arch; an archway.

    to pass into the arch of a bridge

  5. 5

    archaicAn arc; a part of a curve.

  6. 6

    A natural arch-shaped opening in a rock mass.

  7. 7

    The curved part of the bottom of a foot.

  8. 8

    obsoleteA chief.

  9. 9

    Synonym of god (“person who owns and runs a multi-user dungeon”).

  10. 10

    An architecture; a computer architecture or instruction set architecture.

    In the Linux kernel, arch-specific code lives in the arch directory of the source tree.

verb

  1. 1

    To form into an arch shape.

    The cat arched its back.

  2. 2

    To cover with an arch or arches.

adjective

  1. 1

    Knowing, clever, mischievous.

    I attempted to hide my emotions, but an arch remark escaped my lips.

  2. 2

    IrelandCute, sly, prematurely wise.

  3. 3

    Principal; primary.

    They were arch enemies.

adjective

as ARCH
  1. 1

    Initialism of autoregressive conditional heteroskedasticity

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

Arch in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese

LanguageWords
Frencharc, arche (inverted U shape), voûte plantaire (curved part of the bottom of a foot), cambrer (form into arch), -arque (leading, leader), archi- (chief, highest, most extreme)
GermanBogen (inverted U shape), Fußgewölbe, Fußbogen, Spann (curved part of the bottom of a foot), krümmen (form into arch), -arch (leading, leader)
Portuguesearco (inverted U shape), arquear (form into arch), -arca (leading, leader), arqui- (chief, highest, most extreme), esperto (knowing, clever, mischievous)
Spanisharco (inverted U shape), puente, arco del pie, puente/arco podal (curved part of the bottom of a foot), arquear, enarcar (form into arch)

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 arch come from?

From Middle English arch, arche, from Old French arche (“an arch”), a feminine form of arc, from Latin arcus (“a bow, arc, arch”). Doublet of arc and arco. Displaced native Old English bīeġels and Old English hwealf.

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

What to look up after arch