essence
/ˈɛsəns/noun
essence is spelled E-S-S-E-N-C-E. The wrong spelling people search most is essense: about 380 Bing searches a month in the United States (September 2025 to August 2026), about 1 in 31 of all searches for the word. Essence is a noun meaning “The inherent nature of a thing or idea”. The plural of essence is essences.
How many letters and syllables are in essence?
| Letters | 7: E-S-S-E-N-C-E |
|---|---|
| Syllables | 2 (from its American pronunciation) |
| In writing | 11 times per million words; the 6,784th most frequent word form |
| Wrong spellings searched | 1; the most searched, essense, about 380 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 essence?
Essence is spelled E-S-S-E-N-C-E. One wrong spelling is searched or written often enough to measure; together they are about 1 in 31 of the searches for essence 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 essence?
Essence appears 11 times per million words in written English, the 6,784th most frequent word form in the list. The list counts every capitalisation together, so this includes Essence, the name.
Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).
How do you pronounce essence?
- /ˈɛsəns/
Essence 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: En-us-essence.ogg, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).
Forms of essence
- essences plural
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
What does essence mean?
The meanings the English Wiktionary records, quoted as written there (source below).
noun
- 1
The inherent nature of a thing or idea.
CHARITY is a virtue of the heart, and not of the hands, ſays an old writer. Gifts and alms are the expreſſions, not the eſſence of this virtue.
- 2
The true nature of anything, not accidental or illusory.
- 3
Constituent substance.
- 4
A being; especially, a purely spiritual being.
- 5
A significant feature of something.
- 6
The concentrated form of a plant or drug obtained through an extraction or distillation process.
essence of Jojoba
- 7
An extract or concentrate obtained from a plant or other matter used for flavouring, or as a restorative.
vanilla essence
- 8
Fragrance, a perfume.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
Essence in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese
| Language | Words |
|---|---|
| French | essence |
| German | Wesen, Essenz |
| Portuguese | essência , fragrância |
| Spanish | esencia , extracto |
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 essence come from?
From Middle English essence, from Middle French essence, from Latin essentia (“the being or essence of a thing”), from an artificial formation of esse (“to be”), to translate Ancient Greek οὐσία (ousía, “being”), from ὤν (ṓn), present participle of εἰμί (eimí, “to be, exist”). Displaced native Old English understandennes (literally, "understanden-ness").
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).