effort
/ˈɛf.ɚt/noun, verb
effort is spelled E-F-F-O-R-T. The wrong spelling people search most is affort: about 40 Bing searches a month in the United States (September 2025 to August 2026), about 1 in 37 of all searches for the word. Effort is a noun meaning “The work involved in performing an activity; exertion”. The plural of effort is efforts.
How many letters and syllables are in effort?
| Letters | 6: E-F-F-O-R-T |
|---|---|
| Syllables | 2 (from its American pronunciation) |
| In writing | 83 times per million words; the 1,272nd most frequent word form |
| Wrong spellings searched | 2; the most searched, affort, about 40 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 effort?
Effort is spelled E-F-F-O-R-T. 2 wrong spellings are searched or written often enough to measure; together they are about 1 in 22 of the searches for effort 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 effort?
Effort appears 83 times per million words in written English, the 1,272nd 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 effort?
- UK /ˈɛf.ət/
- US /ˈɛf.ɚt/
- Australia /ˈef.ət/
Effort has 2 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-effort.wav, En-us-effort.ogg, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).
Forms of effort
- efforts plural, present, singular, he/she/it
- efforting participle, present
- efforted participle, past
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
What does effort mean?
The meanings the English Wiktionary records, quoted as written there (source below).
noun
- 1
The work involved in performing an activity; exertion.
make an effort
- 2
An endeavor.
Although he didn't win any medals, Johnson's effort at the Olympics won over many fans.
- 3
A force acting on a body in the direction of its motion.
verb
- 1
To make an effort.
- 2
obsoleteTo strengthen, fortify or stimulate
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
Effort in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese
In the sense the amount of work involved in achieving something:
| Language | Words |
|---|---|
| French | effort |
| German | Anstrengung, Aufwand, Bemühung |
| Portuguese | esforço |
| Spanish | esfuerzo, ahínco |
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 effort come from?
From Middle French effort, from Old French esfort, deverbal of esforcier (“to force, exert”), from Vulgar Latin *exfortiō, from Latin ex + fortis (“strong”). Compare typologically Bulgarian усилие (usilie), Czech úsilí, Polish wysiłek, Russian уси́лие (usílije) (< Proto-Slavic *sila).
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).