diarrhea
/ˌdaɪ.əˈɹiː.ə/noun
diarrhea is spelled D-I-A-R-R-H-E-A. The wrong spelling people search most is diarea: about 260 Bing searches a month in the United States (September 2025 to August 2026), about 1 in 119 of all searches for the word. Diarrhea is a noun meaning “A gastrointestinal disorder characterized by frequent and very soft or watery bowel movements”. The plural of diarrhea is diarrheas.
How many letters and syllables are in diarrhea?
| Letters | 8: D-I-A-R-R-H-E-A |
|---|---|
| Syllables | 4 (from its American pronunciation) |
| In writing | 3.5 times per million words; the 13,897th most frequent word form |
| Wrong spellings searched | 1; the most searched, diarea, about 260 Bing searches a month (all of them) |
| Pairs people search | |
| Rhymes with |
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); rhymes and same-letter words are computed by PlainSpell from its own word list.
How do you spell diarrhea?
Diarrhea is spelled D-I-A-R-R-H-E-A. One wrong spelling is searched or written often enough to measure; together they are about 1 in 119 of the searches for diarrhea 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 diarrhea?
Diarrhea appears 3.5 times per million words in written English, the 13,897th 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 diarrhea?
- UK /ˌdaɪ.əˈɹiː.ə/
Diarrhea 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: En-us-diarrhea.ogg, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).
Words people confuse with diarrhea
Word pairs people search, with the monthly searches for “a vs b” (G: Google, B: Bing, United States).
Also written: diarrhoea.
Sources: Google and Bing searches (September 2025 to August 2026, through DataForSEO); English Wiktionary (homophones, alternative spellings).
What rhymes with diarrhea?
8 words on PlainSpell end in the same sounds as diarrhea from its last stressed vowel (/iə/, British pronunciation):
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 diarrhea
- diarrheas plural
- diarrhoea
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
What does diarrhea mean?
The meanings the English Wiktionary records, quoted as written there (source below).
noun
- 1
CanadaUSA gastrointestinal disorder characterized by frequent and very soft or watery bowel movements.
- 2
CanadaUSThe watery or very soft excrement that comes from such bowel movements.
My Pampers bill is higher than your paycheck, my hands are raw from washing them every six minutes, and I do eight loads of laundry a day because everything we own is covered in diarrhea, and you want me to "plug him up" and wait another th
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
Diarrhea in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese
| Language | Words |
|---|---|
| French | diarrhée, foire , chiasse |
| German | Durchfall, Dünnschiss, Diarrhö, Diarrhoe |
| Portuguese | diarreia, caganeira |
| Spanish | diarrea, colitis, cagadera, churria, currutaca, churretera |
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 diarrhea come from?
From Middle English diaria, from Middle French diarrie (French diarrhée), from Late Latin diarrhoea, from Ancient Greek διάρροια (diárrhoia, “through-flowing”), from διά (diá, “through”) + ῥέω (rhéō, “flow”). By surface analysis, dia- + -rrhea. Spelling later altered to resemble the word's Latin and Greek roots. Displaced native Old English ūtsiht (literally “straining out”).
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).