censor
cens·or/ˈsɛnsɚ/noun, verb
censor is spelled C-E-N-S-O-R: 6 letters and 2 syllables (cens·or). It appears 2.3 times per million words in written English, the 18,064th most frequent word form (wordfreq, 2021 data). People search “censor vs sensor” about 880 times a month (Google, United States). As a noun, censor means “One of the two magistrates who originally administered the census of citizens, and by Classical times (between the 8th century B.C.E. and the 6th…” (English Wiktionary, September 2026). The plural of censor is censors.
How many letters and syllables are in censor?
| Letters | 6: C-E-N-S-O-R |
|---|---|
| Syllables | 2: cens·or |
| In writing | 2.3 times per million words; the 18,064th most frequent word form |
| Wrong spellings searched | none measured in search |
| Pairs people search | |
| Sounds like | |
| Rhymes with |
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); rhymes and same-letter words are computed by PlainSpell from its own word list.
How common is censor?
Censor appears 2.3 times per million words in written English, the 18,064th 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 censor?
- UK /ˈsɛnsə/
- US /ˈsɛnsɚ/
Censor has 2 syllables, split cens·or in writing.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Recordings: En-us-censor.wav, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).
Words people confuse with censor
Word pairs people search, with the monthly searches for “a vs b” (G: Google, B: Bing, United States).
Sounds like: censer, sensor (Wiktionary's homophone list; some hold only in some accents).
Sources: Google and Bing searches (September 2025 to August 2026, through DataForSEO); English Wiktionary (homophones, alternative spellings).
What rhymes with censor?
4 words on PlainSpell end in the same sounds as censor from its last stressed vowel (/ɛnsəɹ/):
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 censor
- censors plural, present, singular, he/she/it
- censour
- censoring participle, present
- censored participle, past
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
What does censor mean?
The meanings the English Wiktionary records, quoted as written there (source below).
noun
- 1
One of the two magistrates who originally administered the census of citizens, and by Classical times (between the 8th century B.C.E. and the 6th century C.E.) was a high judge of public behaviour and morality.
The Ancient Roman censors were part of the cursus honorum, a series of public offices held during a political career, like consuls and praetors.
- 2
A high-ranking official who was responsible for the supervision of subordinate government officials.
- 3
An official responsible for the removal or suppression of objectionable material (for example, if obscene or likely to incite violence) or sensitive content in books, films, correspondence, and other media.
The headmaster was an even stricter censor of his boarding pupils’ correspondence than the enemy censors had been of his own when the country was occupied.
- 4
A college or university official whose duties vary depending on the institution.
- 5
obsoleteOne who censures or condemns.
- 6
An algorithm that approves or rejects something on grounds of taste or morality etc.
I tried using a dirty word as my user name for the online game, but the censor rejected it.
- 7
A hypothetical subconscious agency which filters unacceptable thought before it reaches the conscious mind.
verb
- 1
To review for, and if necessary to remove or suppress, content from books, films, correspondence, and other media which is regarded as objectionable (for example, obscene, likely to incite violence, or sensitive).
The people responsible for censoring films have seen some startling things in their time.
- 2
To partially obscure an observation.
Early dropout is one cause of right-censoring.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
Censor in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese
| Language | Words |
|---|---|
| French | censeur , censeure, censeuse , censurer, caviarder |
| Portuguese | censor , censora, censurador, censuradora , censurar |
| Spanish | censor , censora, censurador, censuradora , censurar, expurgar |
| German | Zensor, Zensorin , zensieren |
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 censor come from?
The noun is borrowed from Latin cēnsor (“magistrate; critic”), from cēnseō (“to give an opinion, judge; to assess, reckon; to decree, determine”) + -sor (variant of -tor (suffix forming masculine agent nouns)). Ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *ḱens- (“to announce, proclaim; to put in order”). The English word is cognate with Late Middle English sensour, Proto-Iranian *cánhati (“to declare; to explain”), Sanskrit शंसति (śaṃsati, “to declare”). The verb is derived from the noun.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
What to look up after censor
- censor or sensor? the difference
- censor or censure? the difference
- censer or censor? the difference
- sensor rhymes with censor
- tensor rhymes with censor
- censer the entry before
- censored the entry after
- English words starting with C the most written first
- Misspellings people search
- Count the syllables of any word
- Check the spelling of a text