documentary
/ˌdɑ.kjəˈmɛn.tə.ɹi/adjective, noun
documentary is spelled D-O-C-U-M-E-N-T-A-R-Y. The wrong spelling people search most is documenatry: about 10 Bing searches a month in the United States (September 2025 to August 2026), about 1 in 556 of all searches for the word. Documentary is an adjective meaning “Of, related to, or based on documents”.
How many letters and syllables are in documentary?
| Letters | 11: D-O-C-U-M-E-N-T-A-R-Y |
|---|---|
| Syllables | 5 (from its American pronunciation) |
| In writing | 20 times per million words; the 4,224th most frequent word form |
| Wrong spellings searched | 1; the most searched, documenatry, about 10 Bing searches a month (all of them) |
| 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 documentary?
Documentary is spelled D-O-C-U-M-E-N-T-A-R-Y. One wrong spelling is searched or written often enough to measure; together they are about 1 in 545 of the searches for documentary 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 documentary?
Documentary appears 20 times per million words in written English, the 4,224th 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 documentary?
- UK /ˌdɒk.jʊˈmɛn.tɹi/
- UK /ˌdɒk.jʊˈmɛn.tə.ɹi/
- US /ˌdɑ.kjəˈmɛn.tə.ɹi/
Documentary has 5 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-documentary.wav, LL-Q1860_(eng)-Wodencafe-documentary.wav, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).
Words people confuse with documentary
Also written: doco.
Sources: English Wiktionary (homophones, alternative spellings).
What rhymes with documentary?
2 words on PlainSpell end in the same sounds as documentary from its last stressed vowel (/ɛntəɹi/):
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 documentary
- documentaries plural
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
What does documentary mean?
The meanings the English Wiktionary records, quoted as written there (source below).
adjective
- 1
Of, related to, or based on documents.
- 2
Which serves to document (record or illustrate) a subject.
- 3
Presented objectively without the insertion of fictional matter.
a documentary film
noun
- 1
A film, TV program, publication etc. which presents a social, political, scientific or historical subject in a factual or informative manner.
- 2
Such works collectively, as a genre.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
How do you abbreviate documentary?
Wiktionary records 2 abbreviations of documentary: doco, docu.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
Documentary in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese
| Language | Words |
|---|---|
| French | documentaire , film documentaire |
| Portuguese | documental , documentário |
| Spanish | documental, documentario |
| German | Dokumentarfilm , Dokumentation, Doku |
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 documentary come from?
From French adjective and (hence) noun documentaire, from document, from Latin documentum. Equivalent to document + -ary.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).