attack

at·tack/əˈtæk/noun, verb, adjective

attack is spelled A-T-T-A-C-K, 2 syllables: at·tack. The wrong spelling people search most is atack: about 80 Bing searches a month in the United States (September 2025 to August 2026), about 1 in 29 of all searches for the word. Attack is a noun meaning “An attempt to cause damage, injury to, or death of an opponent or enemy”. The plural of attack is attacks.

How many letters and syllables are in attack?

Letters	6: A-T-T-A-C-K
Syllables	2: at·tack
In writing	123 times per million words; the 851st most frequent word form
Wrong spellings searched	1; the most searched, atack, about 80 Bing searches a month (all of them)
Rhymes with	back black lack crack more

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 do you spell attack?

Attack is spelled A-T-T-A-C-K. One wrong spelling is searched or written often enough to measure; together they are about 1 in 29 of the searches for attack in either form.

attackthe right spelling2,260 searches a month

atacka missing t80 searches a month

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 attack?

Attack appears 123 times per million words in written English, the 851st most frequent word form in the list.

attack0.0010.010.11101001,00010,000

rarerper million words of written Englishmore common

Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).

How do you pronounce attack?

US /əˈtæk/
British /əˈtak/
/əˈtɛk/

Attack has 2 syllables, split at·tack in writing.

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Recordings: En-us-attack.ogg, LL-Q1860_(eng)-Naomi_Persephone_Amethyst_(NaomiAmethyst)-attack.wav, En-au-attack.ogg, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).

What rhymes with attack?

The 12 most written words on PlainSpell end in the same sounds as attack from its last stressed vowel (/æk/):

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 attack

attacks plural, present, singular, he/she/it
attacking participle, present
attacked participle, past, singular, he/she/it, plural

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

What does attack mean?

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

noun

1
An attempt to cause damage, injury to, or death of an opponent or enemy.
2
Any of several specific maneuvers, skills, or special abilities that a character can use to inflict damage against opponents.
3
An attempt to detract from the worth or credibility of, a person, position, idea, object, or thing, by physical, verbal, emotional, or other assault.
They claimed the censorship of the article was an attack on free speech.
4
A time in which one attacks; the offence of a battle.
The army timed their attack to coincide with the local celebrations.
5
informalThe beginning of active operations on anything.
Having washed the plates from dinner, I made an attack on the laundry.
6
An attempt to exploit a vulnerability in a computer system.
birthday attack; denial-of-service attack
7
Collectively, the bowlers of a cricket side.
8
Any contact with the ball other than a serve or block which sends the ball across the plane of the net.

verb

1
To apply violent force to someone or something.
This species of snake will only attack humans if it feels threatened.
2
To aggressively challenge a person, idea, etc., with words (particularly in newspaper headlines, because it typesets into less space than "criticize" or similar).
She published an article attacking the recent pay cuts.
3
To begin to affect; to act upon injuriously or destructively; to begin to decompose or waste.
4
To deal with something in a direct way; to set to work upon.
We’ll have dinner before we attack the biology homework.
5
To aim balls at the batsman’s wicket.
6
To set a field, or bowl in a manner designed to get wickets.
7
To bat aggressively, so as to score runs quickly.
8
To move forward in an active attempt to score a point, as opposed to trying not to concede.

adjective

1
Designed or kept for the purpose of confrontation.
attack dog, attack ad