devastating
adjective, verb
devastating is spelled D-E-V-A-S-T-A-T-I-N-G. The wrong spelling people search most is devestating: about 130 Bing searches a month in the United States (September 2025 to August 2026), about 1 in 10 of all searches for the word. Devastating is an adjective meaning “Causing devastation”.
How many letters and syllables are in devastating?
| Letters | 11: D-E-V-A-S-T-A-T-I-N-G |
|---|---|
| Syllables | 4 (from its American pronunciation) |
| In writing | 7.1 times per million words; the 8,918th most frequent word form |
| Wrong spellings searched | 2; the most searched, devestating, about 130 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 devastating?
Devastating is spelled D-E-V-A-S-T-A-T-I-N-G. 2 wrong spellings are searched or written often enough to measure; together they are about 2 in 10 of the searches for devastating 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 devastating?
Devastating appears 7.1 times per million words in written English, the 8,918th 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 devastating?
Devastating 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).
Forms of devastating
- more devastating comparative
- most devastating superlative
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
What does devastating mean?
The meanings the English Wiktionary records, quoted as written there (source below).
adjective
- 1
Causing devastation.
verb
- 1
present participle and gerund of devastate
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
Devastating in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese
In the sense causing devastation:
| Language | Words |
|---|---|
| French | dévastateur |
| German | verheerend |
| Portuguese | devastador |
| Spanish | devastador |
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.