colony
/ˈkɔl.ə.ni/noun
colony is spelled C-O-L-O-N-Y. The wrong spelling people search most is collony: about 10 Bing searches a month in the United States (September 2025 to August 2026), about 1 in 500 of all searches for the word. Colony is a noun meaning “A geographical area under the remote control of a country; especially to extract resources or exploit labor…”. The plural of colony is colonies.
How many letters and syllables are in colony?
| Letters | 6: C-O-L-O-N-Y |
|---|---|
| Syllables | 3 (from its American pronunciation) |
| In writing | 13 times per million words; the 5,878th most frequent word form |
| Wrong spellings searched | 1; the most searched, collony, about 10 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 colony?
Colony is spelled C-O-L-O-N-Y. One wrong spelling is searched or written often enough to measure; together they are about 1 in 494 of the searches for colony 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 colony?
Colony appears 13 times per million words in written English, the 5,878th 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 colony?
- UK /ˈkɒl.ə.ni/
- British /ˈkɔlənɪj/
- US /ˈkɔl.ə.ni/
Colony 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-colony.ogg, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).
Forms of colony
- colonies plural, present, singular, he/she/it
- colonying participle, present
- colonied participle, past
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
What does colony mean?
The meanings the English Wiktionary records, quoted as written there (source below).
noun
- 1
A geographical area under the remote control of a country; especially to extract resources or exploit labor from that area.
Much of the eastern United States was formerly a British colony; other areas were French, Spanish, Dutch, or Swedish colonies.
- 2
A group of people who settle an area and maintain ties to their country of origin.
a colony of British expats in Spain
- 3
A group of people with similar interests, occupations, or characteristics, living in a particular area; the area such people occupy.
a nudist colony; the statue was put up right in the middle of the artist colony
- 4
A group of organisms of same or different species living together in close association.
ant colony; coral colony
- 5
IndiaAn apartment complex or neighborhood.
Our colony is quite small, but each apartment is large.
- 6
A local group of Beaver Scouts.
- 7
A potential new chapter of a fraternity or sorority awaiting official recognition from their headquarters.
verb
- 1
obsoleterareTo colonize.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
Colony in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese
In the sense region or governmental unit:
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 colony come from?
From Middle English colane, colonye, from Latin colōnia (“colony”), from colōnus (“farmer; colonist”), from colō (“till, cultivate, worship”), from earlier *quelō, from Proto-Indo-European *kʷel- (“to move; to turn (around)”). Doublet of Cologne, Colonia, and Köln.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).