elm
/ɛlm/noun
elm is spelled E-L-M: 3 letters and one syllable. It appears 2.3 times per million words in written English, the 18,064th most frequent word form (wordfreq, 2021 data). As a noun, elm means “A tree of the genus Ulmus of the family Ulmaceae, large deciduous trees with alternate stipulate leaves and small apetalous flowers” (English Wiktionary, September 2026). The plural of elm is elms.
How many letters and syllables are in elm?
| Letters | 3: E-L-M |
|---|---|
| Syllables | 1 (from its American pronunciation) |
| In writing | 2.3 times per million words; the 18,064th most frequent word form |
| Wrong spellings searched | none measured in search |
| Same letters |
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); rhymes and same-letter words are computed by PlainSpell from its own word list.
How common is elm?
Elm appears 2.3 times per million words in written English, the 18,064th 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 elm?
- /ɛlm/
- /ˈɛləm/
Elm 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: LL-Q1860_(eng)-Vealhurl-elm.wav, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).
What rhymes with elm?
No other word on PlainSpell ends in the same sounds as elm.
Spelled with the same letters in another order: mel.
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 elm
- elms plural
- ellum
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
What does elm mean?
The meanings the English Wiktionary records, quoted as written there (source below).
noun
- 1
A tree of the genus Ulmus of the family Ulmaceae, large deciduous trees with alternate stipulate leaves and small apetalous flowers.
- 2
Wood from an elm tree.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
Elm in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese
In the sense tree of genus Ulmus:
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 elm come from?
From Middle English elme, elm, from Old English elm, from Proto-West Germanic *elm, from Proto-Germanic *elmaz, from Proto-Indo-European *h₁élem (“mountain elm”). See also dialectal Low German Elm, dialectal German Ilm, archaic German Ilme, Norwegian and Swedish alm; also Irish leamh, Latin ulmus, Albanian ulzë (“maple”).
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).