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aspersion

noun

aspersion is spelled A-S-P-E-R-S-I-O-N: 9 letters and 3 syllables. It appears about once in every 33 million words in written English, the 176,009th most frequent word form (wordfreq, 2021 data). As a noun, aspersion means “An attack on someone's or something's reputation or good name; often in the phrase to cast aspersions upon…” (English Wiktionary, September 2026). The plural of aspersion is aspersions.

How many letters and syllables are in aspersion?

Letters9: A-S-P-E-R-S-I-O-N
Syllables3 (from its American pronunciation)
In writingabout once in every 33 million words; the 176,009th most frequent word form
Wrong spellings searchednone measured in search

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).

How common is aspersion?

Aspersion appears about once in every 33 million words in written English, the 176,009th 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 aspersion?

  • US

Aspersion 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)-Vininn126-aspersion.wav, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).

Forms of aspersion

  • aspersions plural

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

What does aspersion mean?

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

noun

  1. 1

    An attack on someone's or something's reputation or good name; often in the phrase to cast aspersions upon….

  2. 2

    obsoleteA sprinkling, especially of holy water.

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

Aspersion in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese

LanguageWords
GermanVerleumdung, abfällige Bemerkung (an attack on somebody's reputation or good name), Aspersion, Besprengung (a sprinkling of holy water)
Spanishcalumnia, desdoro (an attack on somebody's reputation or good name), aspersión, hisopada, hisopazo, hisopadura (a sprinkling of holy water)
Portugueseaspersão (a sprinkling of holy water)

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 aspersion come from?

From Latin aspersiōnem, from aspersiō (“sprinkling”).

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

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