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fartlek

fart·lek/ˈfɑɹtlək/noun

fartlek is a noun meaning “An athletic training technique, used especially in running, in which periods of intense effort alternate with periods of less strenuous effort in a…” (English Wiktionary, September 2026). It is spelled F-A-R-T-L-E-K and has 2 syllables (fart·lek), and it appears about once in every 39 million words in written English (wordfreq, 2021 data). The plural of fartlek is fartleks.

What does fartlek mean?

noun

  1. 1

    An athletic training technique, used especially in running, in which periods of intense effort alternate with periods of less strenuous effort in a continuous workout.

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

How do you pronounce fartlek?

  • UK /ˈfɑːtlɛk/
  • US /ˈfɑɹtlək/

Fartlek has 2 syllables, split fart·lek in writing.

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

Forms of fartlek

  • fartleks plural

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

How common is fartlek?

Fartlek appears about once in every 39 million words in written English, the 191,932nd 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).

Fartlek in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese

In the sense training technique in which periods of intense effort alternative with periods o:

LanguageWords
GermanFahrtspiel

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 fartlek come from?

Borrowed from Swedish fartlek, from fart (“speed”) + lek (“child’s play”).

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