both
[bəʊθ]determiner, pronoun, conjunction
both is spelled B-O-T-H. The wrong spelling people search most is bolth: about 30 Bing searches a month in the United States (September 2025 to August 2026), about 1 in 57 of all searches for the word. Both is a determiner meaning “Each of the two; one and the other; referring to two individuals or items”.
How many letters and syllables are in both?
| Letters | 4: B-O-T-H |
|---|---|
| Syllables | 1 (from its American pronunciation) |
| In writing | 617 times per million words; the 160th most frequent word form |
| Wrong spellings searched | 1; the most searched, bolth, about 30 Bing searches a month (all of them) |
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).
How do you spell both?
Both is spelled B-O-T-H. One wrong spelling is searched or written often enough to measure; together they are about 1 in 57 of the searches for both 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 both?
Both appears 617 times per million words in written English, the 160th 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 both?
- /boʊθ/
- /bəʊθ/
- UK [bəʊθ]
Both has one syllable (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-both.ogg, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).
Forms of both
- bothe
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
What does both mean?
The meanings the English Wiktionary records, quoted as written there (source below).
determiner
- 1
Each of the two; one and the other; referring to two individuals or items.
Both (the/my) children are such dolls.
pronoun
- 1
Each of the two, or of the two kinds.
Did you want this one or that one? ―Give me both.
conjunction
- 1
Including both of (used with and).
I (can) both sing and dance.
- 2
obsoleteIncluding all of (used with and).
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
Both in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese
| Language | Words |
|---|---|
| French | tous les deux, les deux, tout deux , à la fois ... et ... |
| German | beide , sowohl ... als auch |
| Portuguese | ambos , ambos ... e ..., tanto ... quanto ... |
| Spanish | ambos, los dos, entrambos, uno y otro, ambos a dos , tanto... como... |
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 both come from?
From Middle English bothe, boþe, from Old English bā þā (“both the; both those”) and possibly reinforced by Old Norse báðir, from Proto-Germanic *bai. Cognate with Saterland Frisian bee (“both”), West Frisian beide (“both”), Dutch beide (“both”), German beide (“both”), Swedish både, båda, Danish både, Norwegian både, Icelandic báðir. Replaced Middle English bō, from Old English bā, a form of Old English bēġen. A remnant of the Indo-European dual grammatical number.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).