decide
/dɪˈsaɪd/verb
decide is spelled D-E-C-I-D-E. The wrong spelling people search most is deside: about 120 Bing searches a month in the United States (September 2025 to August 2026), about 1 in 13 of all searches for the word. Decide is a verb meaning “To resolve (a contest, problem, dispute, etc.); to choose, determine, or settle”.
How many letters and syllables are in decide?
| Letters | 6: D-E-C-I-D-E |
|---|---|
| Syllables | 2 (from its American pronunciation) |
| In writing | 60 times per million words; the 1,724th most frequent word form |
| Wrong spellings searched | 1; the most searched, deside, about 120 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 decide?
Decide is spelled D-E-C-I-D-E. One wrong spelling is searched or written often enough to measure; together they are about 1 in 14 of the searches for decide 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 decide?
Decide appears 60 times per million words in written English, the 1,724th 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 decide?
- /dɪˈsaɪd/
Decide 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-decide.ogg, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).
Forms of decide
- decides present, singular, he/she/it
- deciding participle, present
- decided participle, past, singular, he/she/it, plural
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
What does decide mean?
The meanings the English Wiktionary records, quoted as written there (source below).
verb
- 1
To resolve (a contest, problem, dispute, etc.); to choose, determine, or settle.
The election will be decided on foreign policies.
- 2
To make a judgment, especially after deliberation.
You must decide between good and evil.
- 3
To cause someone to come to a decision.
Your admonition decided me against my intended course of action.
- 4
Of a Turing machine: to return a correct answer (for some yes-or-no problem) on every possible input.
No Turing Machine can decide the halting problem.
- 5
obsoleteTo cut off; to separate.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
Decide in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese
| Language | Words |
|---|---|
| French | décider |
| German | entscheiden, beschließen, entschließen , festsetzen |
| Portuguese | decidir |
| Spanish | decidir, resolver |
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 decide come from?
From Middle English deciden, from Old French decider, from Latin dēcīdere, infinitive of dēcīdō (“cut off, decide”), from dē (“down from”) + caedō (“cut”).
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).