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PlainSpell

corrupt

/kəˈɹʌpt/adjective, verb

corrupt is spelled C-O-R-R-U-P-T. The wrong spelling people search most is corupt: about 90 Bing searches a month in the United States (September 2025 to August 2026), about 1 in 19 of all searches for the word. Corrupt is an adjective meaning “Willing to act dishonestly for personal gain; accepting bribes”.

How many letters and syllables are in corrupt?

Letters7: C-O-R-R-U-P-T
Syllables2 (from its American pronunciation)
In writing14 times per million words; the 5,679th most frequent word form
Wrong spellings searched1; the most searched, corupt, about 90 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 corrupt?

Corrupt is spelled C-O-R-R-U-P-T. One wrong spelling is searched or written often enough to measure; together they are about 1 in 19 of the searches for corrupt in either form.

corruptthe right spelling1,610 searches a month
corupta missing r90 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 corrupt?

Corrupt appears 14 times per million words in written English, the 5,679th 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 corrupt?

  • /kəˈɹʌpt/

Corrupt 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-corrupt.ogg, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).

Forms of corrupt

  • more corrupt comparative
  • most corrupt superlative
  • corrumpt
  • corrump
  • corroupt
  • corrupts present, singular, he/she/it
  • corrupting participle, present
  • corrupted participle, past

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

What does corrupt mean?

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

adjective

  1. 1

    Willing to act dishonestly for personal gain; accepting bribes.

  2. 2

    In a depraved state; debased; perverted; morally degenerate; weak in morals.

    The government here is corrupt, so we'll emigrate to escape them.

  3. 3

    Abounding in errors; not genuine or correct; in an invalid state.

    The text of the manuscript is corrupt.

  4. 4

    In a putrid state; spoiled; tainted; vitiated; unsound.

verb

  1. 1

    To make corrupt; to change from good to bad; to draw away from the right path; to deprave; to pervert.

    Don't you dare corrupt my son with those disgusting pictures!

  2. 2

    archaicTo become putrid, tainted, or otherwise impure; to putrefy; to rot.

  3. 3

    To introduce errors; to place into an invalid state.

    Unplugging a flash drive without dismounting it first can corrupt the data stored on the drive.

  4. 4

    To debase or make impure by alterations or additions; to falsify.

    to corrupt language, or a holy text

  5. 5

    To waste, spoil, or consume; to make worthless.

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

Corrupt in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese

LanguageWords
Frenchcorrompu, dévoyé (in a depraved state), corrompre (to change from good to bad)
Germankorrupt (in a depraved state), verderben, korrumpieren (to change from good to bad)
Portuguesecorrupto (in a depraved state), corromper (to change from good to bad)
Spanishcorrupto (in a depraved state), corromper, corrumpir (to change from good to bad)

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 corrupt come from?

From Middle English corrupten, derived from Latin corruptus, past participle of corrumpō (“to destroy, ruin, injure, spoil, corrupt, bribe”), from com- (“together”) + rumpō (“to break in pieces”).

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

What to look up after corrupt