caribou
/ˈkæɹəbu/noun
caribou is spelled C-A-R-I-B-O-U: 7 letters and 3 syllables. It appears about once in every 1 million words in written English, the 30,017th most frequent word form (wordfreq, 2021 data). As a noun, caribou means “Any of several North American subspecies Rangifer tarandus of the reindeer” (English Wiktionary, September 2026). The plural of caribou is caribous.
How many letters and syllables are in caribou?
| Letters | 7: C-A-R-I-B-O-U |
|---|---|
| Syllables | 3 (from its American pronunciation) |
| In writing | about once in every 1 million words; the 30,017th most frequent word form |
| Wrong spellings searched | none measured in search |
| 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 caribou?
Caribou appears about once in every 1 million words in written English, the 30,017th 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 caribou?
- US /ˈkæɹəbu/
- UK /ˈkærɪbuː/
Caribou 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-caribou.ogg, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).
What rhymes with caribou?
No other word on PlainSpell ends in the same sounds as caribou (/æɹəbu/).
Spelled with the same letters in another order: boricua.
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 caribou
- caribous plural
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
What does caribou mean?
The meanings the English Wiktionary records, quoted as written there (source below).
noun
- 1
Any of several North American subspecies Rangifer tarandus of the reindeer.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
Caribou in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese
In the sense North American reindeer:
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 caribou come from?
Borrowed from Canadian French caribou, from Mi'kmaq qalipu (“caribou”; compare qalipi, “to shovel snow”), from Proto-Algonquian *maka·lipowa (“caribou”, literally “it shovels snow”).
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).