felt
/ˈfɛlt/noun, verb, adjective
felt is spelled F-E-L-T: 4 letters and one syllable. It appears 135 times per million words in written English, the 770th most frequent word form (wordfreq, 2021 data). As a noun, felt means “A cloth or stuff made of matted fibres of wool, or wool and fur, fulled or wrought into a compact substance by rolling and pressure, with lees or…” (English Wiktionary, September 2026). The plural of felt is felts.
How many letters and syllables are in felt?
| Letters | 4: F-E-L-T |
|---|---|
| Syllables | 1 |
| In writing | 135 times per million words; the 770th 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; 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 felt?
Felt appears 135 times per million words in written English, the 770th 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 felt?
- /ˈfɛlt/
- [ˈfɛlt]
- /ˈfæ̝lt/
Felt has one syllable.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Recordings: En-us-felt.ogg, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).
What rhymes with felt?
No other word on PlainSpell ends in the same sounds as felt.
Spelled with the same letters in another order: left, flet.
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 felt
- felts plural, present, singular, he/she/it
- felting participle, present
- felted participle, past
- more felt comparative
- most felt superlative
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
What does felt mean?
The meanings the English Wiktionary records, quoted as written there (source below).
noun
- 1
A cloth or stuff made of matted fibres of wool, or wool and fur, fulled or wrought into a compact substance by rolling and pressure, with lees or size, without spinning or weaving.
- 2
A hat made of felt.
- 3
A felt-tip pen.
- 4
obsoleteA skin or hide; a fell; a pelt.
verb
- 1
To make into felt or a feltlike substance; to cause to adhere and mat together.
- 2
To cover with, or as if with, felt.
to felt the cylinder of a steam engine
- 3
To cause (a player) to lose all their chips.
- 4
To thoroughly defeat or humiliate (someone).
- 5
simple past and past participle of feel
adjective
- 1
That has been experienced or perceived.
noun
- 1
Acronym of fast-evolving luminous transient, a type of supernova.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
Felt in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese
| Language | Words |
|---|---|
| French | feutre, feutrine |
| German | Filz , Filzhut , filzen |
| Portuguese | feltro , feltrar |
| Spanish | fieltro, hieltro (disused) , fieltrar |
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 felt come from?
From Middle English felt, from Old English felt, from Proto-West Germanic *felt (compare Dutch vilt, German Filz, Danish, Norwegian Bokmål, Norwegian Nynorsk, and Swedish filt, French feutre), from Proto-Indo-European *pilto, *pilso 'felt' (compare Latin pilleus (“felt”, adjective), Old Church Slavonic плъсть (plŭstĭ), Albanian plis, Ancient Greek πῖλος (pîlos)), from *pel- 'to beat'. More at anvil.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).