failed
/feɪld/adjective, verb
failed is spelled F-A-I-L-E-D: 6 letters and one syllable. It appears 66 times per million words in written English, the 1,602nd most frequent word form (wordfreq, 2021 data). As an adjective, failed means “unsuccessful” (English Wiktionary, September 2026).
How many letters and syllables are in failed?
| Letters | 6: F-A-I-L-E-D |
|---|---|
| Syllables | 1 (from its American pronunciation) |
| In writing | 66 times per million words; the 1,602nd 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 failed?
Failed appears 66 times per million words in written English, the 1,602nd 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 failed?
- /feɪld/
Failed 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-failed.ogg, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).
What rhymes with failed?
No other word on PlainSpell ends in the same sounds as failed.
Spelled with the same letters in another order: afield.
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).
What does failed mean?
The meanings the English Wiktionary records, quoted as written there (source below).
adjective
- 1
unsuccessful
- 2
Decayed; worn out.
- 3
Bankrupt.
The government is unwilling to bail out the failed bank.
verb
- 1
simple past and past participle of fail
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
Failed in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese
In the sense unsuccessful:
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.