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PlainSpell

either

ei·therUK /ˈaɪ.ðə/determiner, pronoun, adverb, conjunction

either is spelled E-I-T-H-E-R, 2 syllables: ei·ther. The wrong spelling people search most is eighter: about 40 Bing searches a month in the United States (September 2025 to August 2026), about 1 in 64 of all searches for the word. Either is a determiner meaning “Any one (of two)”.

How many letters and syllables are in either?

Letters6: E-I-T-H-E-R
Syllables2: ei·ther
In writing214 times per million words; the 471st most frequent word form
Wrong spellings searched1; the most searched, eighter, about 40 Bing searches a month (all of them)
Pairs people search

Sources: letters and syllables from the English Wiktionary's hyphenation or pronunciation; 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 either?

Either is spelled E-I-T-H-E-R. One wrong spelling is searched or written often enough to measure; together they are about 1 in 64 of the searches for either in either form.

eitherthe right spelling2,530 searches a month
eighteran extra g, t and h swapped40 searches a month

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 either?

Either appears 214 times per million words in written English, the 471st 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 either?

  • UK /ˈaɪ.ðə/
  • UK /ˈiː.ðə/
  • British /ˈɑjðə/

Either has 2 syllables, split ei·ther in writing.

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Recordings: En-uk-either.ogg, En-us-either.ogg, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).

Words people confuse with either

Word pairs people search, with the monthly searches for “a vs b” (G: Google, B: Bing, United States).

either vs neither3,600 G

Sources: Google and Bing searches (September 2025 to August 2026, through DataForSEO); English Wiktionary (homophones, alternative spellings).

What does either mean?

The meanings the English Wiktionary records, quoted as written there (source below).

determiner

  1. 1

    Any one (of two).

    You can have it in either colour.

  2. 2

    Each of two; both.

    There is a locomotive at either end of the train, one pulling and the other pushing.

  3. 3

    proscribedAny one (of more than two).

    I hope you will be ready to own publicly, whenever you shall be called to it, that by your great and frequent urgency you prevailed on me to publish a very loose and uncorrect account of my travels, with directions to hire some young gentle

pronoun

  1. 1

    One or the other of two people or things.

    He made me two offers, but I did not accept either.

  2. 2

    obsoleteBoth, each of two or more.

adverb

  1. 1

    As well.

    I don't like him, and I don't like her either.

conjunction

  1. 1

    Introduces the first of two (or occasionally more) options or possibilities, the second (or last) of which is introduced by “or”.

    Either you eat your dinner or you go to your room.

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).

Either in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese

LanguageWords
Frenchchaque, les deux, l'un ou l'autre (each of two), non plus ((after a negative) as well), ou, soit (introduces the first of two options)
Germanbeide (each of two), auch, ebenso, ebenfalls ((after a negative) as well), entweder, entweder ... oder (introduces the first of two options)
Portugueseambos, qualquer um (each of two), também não, tampouco ((after a negative) as well), ou ... ou (introduces the first of two options)
Spanishcada (each of two), tampoco ((after a negative) as well), o... o, ya sea... o, bien... o, o bien... o bien (introduces the first of two options)

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 either come from?

From Middle English either, from Old English ǣġhwæþer, from Proto-West Germanic *aiw + *gahwaþar. Akin to Old Saxon eogihwethar, iahwethar (Low German jeed); Old Dutch *iogewether, *iowether, *iother (Dutch ieder); Old High German eogihwedar, iegihweder, ieweder (German jeder). The pronunciations with /iː/ and /eɪ/ respectively reflect Middle English forms in /ɛː/ and /æi/; the origin of that with /aɪ/ is less clear, but it may reflect a Middle English form with /iː/; see Middle English either for more discussion.

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).

What to look up after either