Skip to main content
PlainSpell

dense

/ˈdɛns/adjective, noun

dense is spelled D-E-N-S-E: 5 letters and one syllable. It appears 9.5 times per million words in written English, the 7,338th most frequent word form (wordfreq, 2021 data). As an adjective, dense means “Having relatively high density” (English Wiktionary, September 2026).

How many letters and syllables are in dense?

Letters5: D-E-N-S-E
Syllables1
In writing9.5 times per million words; the 7,338th most frequent word form
Wrong spellings searchednone measured in search
Rhymes with
Same letters

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

How common is dense?

Dense appears 9.5 times per million words in written English, the 7,338th 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 dense?

  • US /ˈdɛns/
  • US /ˈdɪns/
  • Australia /ˈdens/

Dense has one syllable.

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Recordings: En-us-dense.ogg, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).

What rhymes with dense?

5 words on PlainSpell end in the same sounds as dense from its last stressed vowel (/ɛns/):

Spelled with the same letters in another order: needs, sneed.

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 dense

  • denser comparative
  • densest superlative
  • denses plural

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

What does dense mean?

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

adjective

  1. 1

    Having relatively high density.

  2. 2

    Compact; crowded together.

  3. 3

    Thick; difficult to penetrate.

  4. 4

    Opaque; allowing little light to pass through.

  5. 5

    Obscure or difficult to understand.

  6. 6

    Such that its closure in T is T.

  7. 7

    Slow to comprehend; of low intelligence. (of a person)

noun

  1. 1

    A thicket.

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

Dense in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese

LanguageWords
Frenchdense (having relatively high density), obscur (obscure, or difficult to understand), bouché (slow to comprehend; of low intelligence)
Germandicht (having relatively high density)
Portuguesedenso (having relatively high density), compacto (compact; crowded together), espesso (thick; difficult to penetrate)
Spanishdenso (having relatively high density), compacto, macizo (compact; crowded together), espeso (thick; difficult to penetrate)

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 dense come from?

From Middle French dense, from Latin dēnsus, from Proto-Indo-European *dens- (“thick, dense”) (whence also Ancient Greek δασύς (dasús)).

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

What to look up after dense