eight
/eɪt/number, noun
eight is spelled E-I-G-H-T. The wrong spelling people search most is eigth: about 520 Bing searches a month in the United States (September 2025 to August 2026), about 1 in 10 of all searches for the word. Eight is a number meaning “A numerical value equal to 8; the number occurring after seven and before nine”.
How many letters and syllables are in eight?
| Letters | 5: E-I-G-H-T |
|---|---|
| Syllables | 1 (from its American pronunciation) |
| In writing | 105 times per million words; the 1,021st most frequent word form |
| Wrong spellings searched | 1; the most searched, eigth, about 520 Bing searches a month (all of them) |
| Pairs people search | |
| Sounds like | |
| 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 eight?
Eight is spelled E-I-G-H-T. One wrong spelling is searched or written often enough to measure; together they are about 1 in 10 of the searches for eight 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 eight?
Eight appears 105 times per million words in written English, the 1,021st 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 eight?
- US /eɪt/
- /eʈ/
- /ɛ(j)ʈ/
Eight has one syllable (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-eight.ogg, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).
Words people confuse with eight
Word pairs people search, with the monthly searches for “a vs b” (G: Google, B: Bing, United States).
Sounds like: ait, ate, eyot (Wiktionary's homophone list; some hold only in some accents).
Sources: Google and Bing searches (September 2025 to August 2026, through DataForSEO); English Wiktionary (homophones, alternative spellings).
What rhymes with eight?
The 12 most written words on PlainSpell end in the same sounds as eight from its last stressed vowel (/eɪt/):
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 eight
- aught
- eights plural
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
What does eight mean?
The meanings the English Wiktionary records, quoted as written there (source below).
number
- 1
A numerical value equal to 8; the number occurring after seven and before nine.
- 2
Describing a group or set with eight elements.
He works eight hours a day.
noun
- 1
The digit/figure 8.
- 2
Any of the four cards in a normal deck with the value eight.
- 3
A light, narrow rowing boat, especially one used in competitive rowing, steered by a cox, in which eight rowers each have two oars.
- 4
A race in which such craft participate.
- 5
The eight people who crew a rowing-boat.
- 6
Eight o'clock.
- 7
Alternative spelling of ait (island in a river)
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
Eight in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese
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 eight come from?
From Middle English eighte, aught, eahte, ahte, from Old English eahta, from Proto-West Germanic *ahtō, from Proto-Germanic *ahtōu, from Proto-Indo-European *oḱtṓw.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).