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catholic

ca·tho·lic/ˈkæ.θ(ə.)lɪk/adjective

catholic is spelled C-A-T-H-O-L-I-C, 3 syllables: ca·tho·lic. The wrong spelling people search most is cathlic: about 150 Bing searches a month in the United States (September 2025 to August 2026), about 1 in 88 of all searches for the word. Catholic is an adjective meaning “Universal; all-encompassing”.

How many letters and syllables are in catholic?

Letters8: C-A-T-H-O-L-I-C
Syllables3: ca·tho·lic
In writing35 times per million words; the 2,725th most frequent word form
Wrong spellings searched1; the most searched, cathlic, about 150 Bing searches a month (all of them)

Sources: letters and syllables from the English Wiktionary's hyphenation or pronunciation; 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 catholic?

Catholic is spelled C-A-T-H-O-L-I-C. One wrong spelling is searched or written often enough to measure; together they are about 1 in 88 of the searches for catholic in either form.

catholicthe right spelling13,060 searches a month
cathlica missing o150 searches a month

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 catholic?

Catholic appears 35 times per million words in written English, the 2,725th 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 catholic?

  • UK /ˈkæ.θ(ə.)lɪk/
  • UK /ˈkɑː.θ(ə.)lɪk/
  • US /ˈkæ.θ(ə.)lɪk/

Catholic has 3 syllables, split ca·tho·lic in writing.

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Recordings: LL-Q1860_(eng)-Pvanp7-catholic.wav, En-us-Catholic.ogg, LL-Q1860_(eng)-Vininn126-catholic.wav, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).

Forms of catholic

  • more catholic comparative
  • most catholic superlative

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).

What does catholic mean?

The meanings the English Wiktionary records, quoted as written there (source below).

adjective

  1. 1

    Universal; all-encompassing.

    The church is catholic, universal, so are all her actions; all that she does, belongs to all.

  2. 2

    Alternative letter-case form of Catholic.

  3. 3

    obsoleteCommon or prevalent; especially universally prevalent.

  4. 4

    All-embracing.

  5. 5

    obsoleteUniversally applicable.

  6. 6

    Of universal human interest or use.

adjective

as Catholic
  1. 1

    Of the Western Christian church, as differentiated from e.g. the Orthodox church.

    Christmas is celebrated at different dates in the Catholic and Orthodox calendars.

  2. 2

    Of the Roman Catholic church in particular.

    The Church of the Sacred Heart is a Catholic one.

  3. 3

    Alternative letter-case form of catholic.

noun

as Catholic
  1. 1

    A member of a Catholic (western Christian) church.

  2. 2

    A member of the Roman Catholic Church (which is also elliptically called the Catholic Church).

    The wife of the Prime Minister is a Catholic.

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).

Catholic in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese

LanguageWords
Frenchcatholique (universal)
Germanumfassend, allumfassend, universal (universal), katholisch (of the Western Christian church, as…), Katholik, Katholikin (member of a Catholic church)
Portuguesecatólico (of the Western Christian church, as…)
Spanishcatólico (of the Western Christian church, as…), católica (member of a Catholic church), católico romano (of the Roman Catholic church)

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 catholic come from?

From Old French catholique, from Latin catholicus, from Ancient Greek καθολικός (katholikós, “universal”), from κατά (katá, “according to”) + ὅλος (hólos, “whole”).

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).

What to look up after catholic