barley
/ˈbɑɹli/noun
barley is spelled B-A-R-L-E-Y: 6 letters and 2 syllables. It appears 3.1 times per million words in written English, the 15,146th most frequent word form (wordfreq, 2021 data). As a noun, barley means “A cereal of the species Hordeum vulgare or its grains, often used as food or to make beer and other malted drinks” (English Wiktionary, September 2026). The plural of barley is barleys.
How many letters and syllables are in barley?
| Letters | 6: B-A-R-L-E-Y |
|---|---|
| Syllables | 2 (from its American pronunciation) |
| In writing | 3.1 times per million words; the 15,146th most frequent word form |
| Wrong spellings searched | none measured in search |
| Sounds like | |
| 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); rhymes and same-letter words are computed by PlainSpell from its own word list.
How common is barley?
Barley appears 3.1 times per million words in written English, the 15,146th 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 barley?
- US /ˈbɑɹli/
- UK /ˈbɑːli/
Barley has 2 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-barley.ogg, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).
Words people confuse with barley
Sounds like: Bali (Wiktionary's homophone list; some hold only in some accents).
Sources: English Wiktionary (homophones, alternative spellings).
What rhymes with barley?
4 words on PlainSpell end in the same sounds as barley from its last stressed vowel (/ɑɹli/):
Spelled with the same letters in another order: barely, bleary, bearly.
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 barley
- barleys plural
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
What does barley mean?
The meanings the English Wiktionary records, quoted as written there (source below).
noun
- 1
A cereal of the species Hordeum vulgare or its grains, often used as food or to make beer and other malted drinks.
- 2
The seed of Job's tears (Coix lacryma-jobi).
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
Barley in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese
In the sense Hordeum vulgare or its grains:
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 barley come from?
From Middle English barly, barli, from Old English bærlīċ (“barley-like”, adjective) (later referring to barley itself and grain crops of similar appearance), from bere (“barley”) (compare Scots bere (“six-rowed barley”)), from Proto-Germanic *baraz (compare Old Norse barr), from Proto-Indo-European *bʰers- (“spike, prickle”). Equivalent to bere + -ly. See English brew.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).