combustion
com·bus·tion/kəmˈbʌs.t͡ʃən/noun
combustion is spelled C-O-M-B-U-S-T-I-O-N, 3 syllables: com·bus·tion. The wrong spelling people search most is combusion: about 10 Bing searches a month in the United States (September 2025 to August 2026), about 1 in 145 of all searches for the word. Combustion is a noun meaning “The act or process of burning”. The plural of combustion is combustions.
How many letters and syllables are in combustion?
| Letters | 10: C-O-M-B-U-S-T-I-O-N |
|---|---|
| Syllables | 3: com·bus·tion |
| In writing | 3.7 times per million words; the 13,496th most frequent word form |
| Wrong spellings searched | 1; the most searched, combusion, about 10 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 combustion?
Combustion is spelled C-O-M-B-U-S-T-I-O-N. One wrong spelling is searched or written often enough to measure; together they are about 1 in 145 of the searches for combustion 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 combustion?
Combustion appears 3.7 times per million words in written English, the 13,496th 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 combustion?
- /kəmˈbʌs.t͡ʃən/
- [kəɱˈbʌs.t͡ʃʰən] ~ [kəɱˈbʌs.t͡ʃʰn̩]
Combustion has 3 syllables, split com·bus·tion in writing.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Recordings: En-us-combustion.ogg, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).
Forms of combustion
- combustions plural
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
What does combustion mean?
The meanings the English Wiktionary records, quoted as written there (source below).
noun
- 1
The act or process of burning.
- 2
A process whereby two chemicals are combined to produce heat.
- 3
A process wherein a fuel is combined with oxygen, usually at high temperature, releasing heat.
- 4
Violent agitation, tumult.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
Combustion in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese
| Language | Words |
|---|---|
| French | combustion |
| German | Verbrennung |
| Portuguese | combustão, queima |
| Spanish | combustión, quemado , reacción química , oxidación , revuelta |
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 combustion come from?
From Old French combustion, from Latin combustio, from comburere (“to burn”), itself from the intensifying prefix com- + the root burere (a faulty sep. of amburere "to burn around", itself from ambi- + urere "to burn, singe"); equivalent to combust + -ion.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).