Skip to main content
PlainSpell

cheerio

/ˈt͡ʃɪɹi.oʊ/interjection, noun

cheerio is spelled C-H-E-E-R-I-O: 7 letters and 3 syllables. It appears about once in every 5 million words in written English, the 65,114th most frequent word form (wordfreq, 2021 data). As an interjection, cheerio means “Goodbye, an interjection said upon parting” (English Wiktionary, September 2026).

How many letters and syllables are in cheerio?

Letters7: C-H-E-E-R-I-O
Syllables3 (from its American pronunciation)
In writingabout once in every 5 million words; the 65,114th most frequent word form
Wrong spellings searchednone 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 cheerio?

Cheerio appears about once in every 5 million words in written English, the 65,114th 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 cheerio?

  • UK /ˈtʃɪəɹi.əʊ/
  • British /ˈtʃɪːɹɪjəw/
  • US /ˈt͡ʃɪɹi.oʊ/

Cheerio 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)-JutishMale-cheerio.wav, EN-AU_ck1_cheerio.ogg, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).

Forms of cheerio

  • cheerios plural

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

What does cheerio mean?

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

interjection

  1. 1

    CommonwealthIrelandUKinformalGoodbye, an interjection said upon parting.

  2. 2

    rareHello; a greeting.

noun

  1. 1

    A small saveloy often consumed with tomato sauce at parties.

noun

as Cheerio
  1. 1

    An individual piece of the Cheerios breakfast cereal.

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

Cheerio in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese

LanguageWords
Germantschüss (goodbye, toodeloo – see also bye), hallo (hello – see also hi)
Frenchsalut (translations to be checked: exclamation used…)

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 cheerio come from?

From cheer and/or cheery + -o.

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

What to look up after cheerio