cartilage
/ˈkɑɹ.təl.ɪd͡ʒ/noun
cartilage is spelled C-A-R-T-I-L-A-G-E. The wrong spelling people search most is cartilege: about 60 Bing searches a month in the United States (September 2025 to August 2026), about 1 in 35 of all searches for the word. Cartilage is a noun meaning “A usually translucent and somewhat elastic, dense, nonvascular connective tissue found in various forms in…”. The plural of cartilage is cartilages.
How many letters and syllables are in cartilage?
| Letters | 9: C-A-R-T-I-L-A-G-E |
|---|---|
| Syllables | 3 (from its American pronunciation) |
| In writing | 1.8 times per million words; the 20,629th most frequent word form |
| Wrong spellings searched | 2; the most searched, cartilege, about 60 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 cartilage?
Cartilage is spelled C-A-R-T-I-L-A-G-E. 2 wrong spellings are searched or written often enough to measure; together they are about 1 in 20 of the searches for cartilage 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 cartilage?
Cartilage appears 1.8 times per million words in written English, the 20,629th 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 cartilage?
- UK /ˈkɑː.tɪl.ɪd͡ʒ/
- UK /ˈkɑːt.lɪd͡ʒ/
- US /ˈkɑɹ.təl.ɪd͡ʒ/
Cartilage 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-cartilage.ogg, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).
Forms of cartilage
- cartilages plural
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
What does cartilage mean?
The meanings the English Wiktionary records, quoted as written there (source below).
noun
- 1
A usually translucent and somewhat elastic, dense, nonvascular connective tissue found in various forms in the larynx and respiratory tract, in structures such as the external ear, and in the articulating surfaces of joints. It composes most of the skeleton of vertebrate embryos, being replaced by bone during ossification in the higher vertebrates.
- 2
A particular structure made of cartilage.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
Cartilage in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese
In the sense elastic tissue:
| Language | Words |
|---|---|
| French | cartilage |
| German | Knorpel |
| Portuguese | cartilagem |
| Spanish | cartílago, cartilágine, ternilla |
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 cartilage come from?
Borrowed from French cartilage, from Latin cartilāgō. Partially displaced native gristle, from Old English gristel.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).