delinquency
/dɪˈlɪŋkwənsi/noun
delinquency is spelled D-E-L-I-N-Q-U-E-N-C-Y. The wrong spelling people search most is delinquincy: about 50 Bing searches a month in the United States (September 2025 to August 2026), about 1 in 24 of all searches for the word. Delinquency is a noun meaning “Misconduct”. The plural of delinquency is delinquencies.
How many letters and syllables are in delinquency?
| Letters | 11: D-E-L-I-N-Q-U-E-N-C-Y |
|---|---|
| Syllables | 4 (from its American pronunciation) |
| In writing | about once in every 1 million words; the 31,974th most frequent word form |
| Wrong spellings searched | 1; the most searched, delinquincy, about 50 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 delinquency?
Delinquency is spelled D-E-L-I-N-Q-U-E-N-C-Y. One wrong spelling is searched or written often enough to measure; together they are about 1 in 24 of the searches for delinquency 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 delinquency?
Delinquency appears about once in every 1 million words in written English, the 31,974th 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 delinquency?
- UK /dɪˈlɪŋkwənsi/
Delinquency has 4 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: LL-Q1860_(eng)-Vealhurl-delinquency.wav, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).
Forms of delinquency
- delinquencies plural
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
What does delinquency mean?
The meanings the English Wiktionary records, quoted as written there (source below).
noun
- 1
Misconduct.
- 2
A criminal offense.
- 3
A debt that is overdue for payment.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
Delinquency in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese
In the sense misconduct:
| Language | Words |
|---|---|
| Portuguese | delinquência |
| Spanish | delincuencia |
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 delinquency come from?
Borrowed from Late Latin dēlinquentia, derived from Latin dēlinquēns, present participle of dēlinquō (“to transgress, err”).
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).