filter
/ˈfɪltɚ/noun, verb
filter is spelled F-I-L-T-E-R. The wrong spelling people search most is fitler: about 60 Bing searches a month in the United States (September 2025 to August 2026), about 1 in 769 of all searches for the word. Filter is a noun meaning “A device which separates a suspended, dissolved, or particulate matter from a fluid, solution, or other…”. The plural of filter is filters.
How many letters and syllables are in filter?
| Letters | 6: F-I-L-T-E-R |
|---|---|
| Syllables | 2 (from its American pronunciation) |
| In writing | 19 times per million words; the 4,444th most frequent word form |
| Wrong spellings searched | 1; the most searched, fitler, about 60 Bing searches a month (all of them) |
| Sounds like | |
| Rhymes with | |
| 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); 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); rhymes and same-letter words are computed by PlainSpell from its own word list.
How do you spell filter?
Filter is spelled F-I-L-T-E-R. One wrong spelling is searched or written often enough to measure; together they are about 1 in 778 of the searches for filter 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 filter?
Filter appears 19 times per million words in written English, the 4,444th 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 filter?
- UK /ˈfɪltə/
- US /ˈfɪltɚ/
Filter 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-filter.ogg, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).
Words people confuse with filter
Sounds like: philter (Wiktionary's homophone list; some hold only in some accents).
Sources: English Wiktionary (homophones, alternative spellings).
What rhymes with filter?
3 words on PlainSpell end in the same sounds as filter from its last stressed vowel (/ɪltəɹ/):
Spelled with the same letters in another order: trifle, lifter.
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 filter
- filters plural, present, singular, he/she/it
- filtering participle, present
- filtered participle, past
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
What does filter mean?
The meanings the English Wiktionary records, quoted as written there (source below).
noun
- 1
A device which separates a suspended, dissolved, or particulate matter from a fluid, solution, or other substance; any device that separates one substance from another.
- 2
Electronics or software that separates unwanted signals (for example noise) from wanted signals or that attenuates selected frequencies.
- 3
Any item, mechanism, device, or procedure that acts to separate or isolate.
He runs an email filter to catch the junk mail.
- 4
Self-restraint in speech.
He's got no filter, and he's always offending people as a result.
- 5
A non-empty upper set (of a partially ordered set) which is closed under binary infima (a.k.a. meets).
The collection of cofinite subsets of ℝ is a filter under inclusion: it includes the intersection of every pair of its members, and includes every superset of every cofinite set.
- 6
A translucent object placed in the light path of a camera to remove certain wavelengths (colors), or a computer program that simulates such an effect.
- 7
An appearance-altering digital image effect.
verb
- 1
To sort, sift, or isolate.
This strainer should filter out the large particles.
- 2
To diffuse; to cause to be less concentrated or focused.
The leaves of the trees filtered the light.
- 3
To pass through a filter or to act as though passing through a filter.
The water filtered through the rock and soil.
- 4
To move slowly or gradually; to come or go a few at a time.
The crowd filtered into the theater.
- 5
To ride a motorcycle between lanes on a road
I can skip past all the traffic on my bike by filtering.
- 6
derogatoryslangTo be discouraged where a connoisseur or hardcore fan would not.
Most people get filtered by that episode.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
Filter in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese
| Language | Words |
|---|---|
| French | filtre |
| German | Filter , filtern , filtrieren , passieren |
| Portuguese | filtro, crivo , filtrar |
| Spanish | filtro , filtrar |
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 filter come from?
From Middle English filtre, from Medieval Latin filtrum (compare also Old French feutre (“felt; filter”)), from Frankish *filtir, from Proto-West Germanic *felt. See felt. Doublet of phin.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).