caressing
/kəˈɹɛsɪŋ/noun, verb
caressing is spelled C-A-R-E-S-S-I-N-G: 9 letters and 3 syllables. It appears about once in every 2 million words in written English, the 40,703rd most frequent word form (wordfreq, 2021 data). As a noun, caressing means “A caress” (English Wiktionary, September 2026). The plural of caressing is caressings.
How many letters and syllables are in caressing?
| Letters | 9: C-A-R-E-S-S-I-N-G |
|---|---|
| Syllables | 3 (from its American pronunciation) |
| In writing | about once in every 2 million words; the 40,703rd most frequent word form |
| Wrong spellings searched | none measured in search |
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).
How common is caressing?
Caressing appears about once in every 2 million words in written English, the 40,703rd 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 caressing?
- /kəˈɹɛsɪŋ/
Caressing 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: LL-Q1860_(eng)-Vealhurl-caressing.wav, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).
Forms of caressing
- caressings plural
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
What does caressing mean?
The meanings the English Wiktionary records, quoted as written there (source below).
noun
- 1
A caress.
verb
- 1
present participle and gerund of caress
It was a quick drive to her apartment, and although we didn't actually verbalize that we wanted to have sex, we were caressing each other's thighs.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).