Skip to main content
PlainSpell

contrast

/kənˈt(ʃ)ɹæst/noun, verb

contrast is spelled C-O-N-T-R-A-S-T. The wrong spelling people search most is constrast: about 30 Bing searches a month in the United States (September 2025 to August 2026), about 1 in 114 of all searches for the word. Contrast is a noun meaning “The degree of this difference”. The plural of contrast is contrasts.

How many letters and syllables are in contrast?

Letters8: C-O-N-T-R-A-S-T
Syllables2 (from its American pronunciation)
In writing29 times per million words; the 3,218th most frequent word form
Wrong spellings searched1; the most searched, constrast, about 30 Bing searches a month (all of them)
Rhymes with

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); rhymes and same-letter words are computed by PlainSpell from its own word list.

How do you spell contrast?

Contrast is spelled C-O-N-T-R-A-S-T. One wrong spelling is searched or written often enough to measure; together they are about 1 in 114 of the searches for contrast in either form.

contrastthe right spelling3,380 searches a month
constrastan extra s30 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 contrast?

Contrast appears 29 times per million words in written English, the 3,218th 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 contrast?

  • UK /kənˈtɹɑːst/
  • /kənˈtɹast/
  • US /kənˈt(ʃ)ɹæst/

Contrast has 2 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-contrast.ogg, LL-Q1860_(eng)-Vealhurl-contrast_(verb).wav, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).

What rhymes with contrast?

The 12 most written words on PlainSpell end in the same sounds as contrast from its last stressed vowel (/æst/):

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 contrast

  • contrasts plural, present, singular, he/she/it
  • contrasting participle, present
  • contrasted participle, past

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

What does contrast mean?

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

noun

  1. 1

    The degree of this difference.

    The red and the orange don't have much contrast between them – I can hardly tell them apart.

  2. 2

    A control on a television, etc, that adjusts the amount of contrast in the images being displayed.

  3. 3

    A difference between two objects, people or concepts.

    Israel is a country of many contrasts.

  4. 4

    Something that is opposite of or strikingly different from something else.

  5. 5

    Antithesis.

  6. 6

    Contrast medium

verb

  1. 1

    To set in opposition in order to show the difference or differences between; to counterpoint.

  2. 2

    To form a contrast.

    Foreground and background strongly contrast.

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

How do you abbreviate contrast?

Wiktionary records one abbreviation of contrast: contr..

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

Contrast in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese

LanguageWords
GermanKontrast (difference that makes colours more or less…), Gegensatz, Unterschied (difference between two objects, people or…), gegenüberstellen (to set in opposition in order to show the…)
Portuguesecontraste (difference that makes colours more or less…), contrastar (to set in opposition in order to show the…)
Spanishcontraste (difference that makes colours more or less…), contrastar (to form a contrast)
Frenchcontraste (difference between two objects, people or…), contraster (to set in opposition in order to show the…)

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 contrast come from?

From French contraster, from Latin contrāstāre (“to resist", "to withstand”), from contrā (“against”) + stō, stāre (“to stand”).

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

What to look up after contrast