attorney
/əˈtɜɹni/noun, verb
attorney is spelled A-T-T-O-R-N-E-Y. The wrong spelling people search most is atorney: about 120 Bing searches a month in the United States (September 2025 to August 2026), about 1 in 313 of all searches for the word. Attorney is a noun meaning “A lawyer; one who advises or represents others in legal matters as a profession”. The plural of attorney is attorneys; Wiktionary also lists attornies (obsolete).
How many letters and syllables are in attorney?
| Letters | 8: A-T-T-O-R-N-E-Y |
|---|---|
| Syllables | 3 (from its American pronunciation) |
| In writing | 49 times per million words; the 2,072nd most frequent word form |
| Wrong spellings searched | 1; the most searched, atorney, about 120 Bing searches a month (all of them) |
| Rhymes with |
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 do you spell attorney?
Attorney is spelled A-T-T-O-R-N-E-Y. One wrong spelling is searched or written often enough to measure; together they are about 1 in 309 of the searches for attorney 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 attorney?
Attorney appears 49 times per million words in written English, the 2,072nd 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 attorney?
- UK /əˈtɜːni/
- US /əˈtɜɹni/
- /ʔɐˈtoɹ.ni/
Attorney 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: En-us-attorney.ogg, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).
What rhymes with attorney?
3 words on PlainSpell end in the same sounds as attorney from its last stressed vowel (/ɜɹni/):
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 attorney
- attorneys plural, present, singular, he/she/it
- attorneying participle, present
- attorneyed participle, past
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
What does attorney mean?
The meanings the English Wiktionary records, quoted as written there (source below).
noun
- 1
USA lawyer; one who advises or represents others in legal matters as a profession.
- 2
An agent or representative authorized to act on someone else's behalf in accordance with that person's instructions.
Near-synonyms: agent, proxy, representative
- 3
UKdatedOne such who practised in the courts of the common law.
- 4
UKderogatoryrareA solicitor.
- 5
USAn honorific given to lawyers and notaries public, or those holders by profession who also do other jobs. Usually capitalized or abbreviated as Atty.
- 6
An attorney tree (Clusia spp.)
- 7
A prosecutor.
verb
- 1
rareTo work as a legal attorney.
- 2
rareTo provide with a legal attorney.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
How do you abbreviate attorney?
Wiktionary records 3 abbreviations of attorney: Atty, atty, atty..
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
Attorney in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese
| Language | Words |
|---|---|
| French | juriste, avocat, avocate , mandataire |
| German | Rechtsanwalt |
| Portuguese | advogado, advogada, causídico |
| Spanish | abogado, abogada, mandatario |
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 attorney come from?
From Middle English attourne, from Old French atorné, past participle of atorner, atourner, aturner (“to attorn”), in the sense of "one appointed or constituted".
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).