businessman
/ˈbɪznəsmæn/noun
businessman is spelled B-U-S-I-N-E-S-S-M-A-N. The wrong spelling people search most is buisnessman: about 30 Bing searches a month in the United States (September 2025 to August 2026), about 1 in 16 of all searches for the word. Businessman is a noun meaning “A man in business, one who works at a commercial institution”. The plural of businessman is businessmen.
How many letters and syllables are in businessman?
| Letters | 11: B-U-S-I-N-E-S-S-M-A-N |
|---|---|
| Syllables | 3 (from its American pronunciation) |
| In writing | 8.9 times per million words; the 7,672nd most frequent word form |
| Wrong spellings searched | 1; the most searched, buisnessman, 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 businessman?
Businessman is spelled B-U-S-I-N-E-S-S-M-A-N. One wrong spelling is searched or written often enough to measure; together they are about 1 in 16 of the searches for businessman 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 businessman?
Businessman appears 8.9 times per million words in written English, the 7,672nd 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 businessman?
- UK /ˈbɪznəsmən/
- UK /ˈbɪznɪsmən/
- US /ˈbɪznəsmæn/
Businessman 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-businessman.ogg, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).
Words people confuse with businessman
Also written: business-man (one word or two).
Sources: English Wiktionary (homophones, alternative spellings).
Forms of businessman
- businessmen plural
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
What does businessman mean?
The meanings the English Wiktionary records, quoted as written there (source below).
noun
- 1
A man in business, one who works at a commercial institution.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
Businessman in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese
In the sense a man in business, one who works at a commercial institution:
| Language | Words |
|---|---|
| French | homme d'affaires |
| German | Geschäftsmann, Unternehmer |
| Portuguese | empresário, homem de negócios, negociante |
| Spanish | hombre de negocios, empresario, negociante |
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 businessman come from?
From business + -man. Displaced earlier merchant, ultimately from Latin mercāns (“merchant, buyer”).
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).