are
/ɑː/verb, noun
are is spelled A-R-E: 3 letters and one syllable. It appears 5,495 times per million words in written English, the 20th most frequent word form (wordfreq, 2021 data). People search “are vs is” about 3,600 times a month (Google, United States). As a verb, are means “second-person singular simple present of be” (English Wiktionary, September 2026).
How many letters and syllables are in are?
| Letters | 3: A-R-E |
|---|---|
| Syllables | 1 |
| In writing | 5,495 times per million words; the 20th most frequent word form |
| Wrong spellings searched | none measured in search |
| Pairs people search | |
| Sounds like | |
| Rhymes with | |
| Same letters |
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); rhymes and same-letter words are computed by PlainSpell from its own word list.
How common is are?
Are appears 5,495 times per million words in written English, the 20th 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 are?
- /ə/
- /ɑː/
- /aː/
As a noun (“An accepted (but deprecated and rarely used) metric unit of…”): /ɛə/, /ɛː/, /ɛəɹ/.
Are has one syllable.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Recordings: En-us-are.ogg, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).
Words people confuse with are
Word pairs people search, with the monthly searches for “a vs b” (G: Google, B: Bing, United States).
Sounds like: e'er, ere, eyre (Wiktionary's homophone list; some hold only in some accents).
Sources: Google and Bing searches (September 2025 to August 2026, through DataForSEO); English Wiktionary (homophones, alternative spellings).
What rhymes with are?
The 12 most written words on PlainSpell end in the same sounds as are from its last stressed vowel (/ɛəɹ/):
Spelled with the same letters in another order: era, ear, rea.
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 are
- ares plural
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
What does are mean?
The meanings the English Wiktionary records, quoted as written there (source below).
verb
- 1
second-person singular simple present of be
Mary, where are you going?
- 2
first-person plural simple present of be
We are not coming.
- 3
second-person plural simple present of be
Mary and John, are you listening?
- 4
third-person plural simple present of be
They are here somewhere.
- 5
present of be
noun
- 1
Initialism of advance reader’s edition.
noun
- 1
rareAn accepted (but deprecated and rarely used) metric unit of area equal to 100 square metres, or a former unit of approximately the same extent. Symbol: a.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
How do you abbreviate are?
Wiktionary records one abbreviation of are: r.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
Are in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese
In the sense unit of area:
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 are come from?
From Middle English aren, from Old English (Anglian) earun, earon (“are”, plural). Possibly reinforced by the Old Norse plural forms in er-, this displaced the alternative forms Old English sind and bēoþ. In the second person singular it displaced archaic art.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).