flourish
flour·ish/ˈflʌɹ.ɪʃ/verb, noun
flourish is spelled F-L-O-U-R-I-S-H, 2 syllables: flour·ish. The wrong spelling people search most is fluorish: about 60 Bing searches a month in the United States (September 2025 to August 2026), about 1 in 119 of all searches for the word. Flourish is a verb meaning “To thrive or grow well”.
How many letters and syllables are in flourish?
| Letters | 8: F-L-O-U-R-I-S-H |
|---|---|
| Syllables | 2: flour·ish |
| In writing | 3.4 times per million words; the 14,307th most frequent word form |
| Wrong spellings searched | 1; the most searched, fluorish, about 60 Bing searches a month (all of them) |
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); 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 flourish?
Flourish is spelled F-L-O-U-R-I-S-H. One wrong spelling is searched or written often enough to measure; together they are about 1 in 119 of the searches for flourish 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 flourish?
Flourish appears 3.4 times per million words in written English, the 14,307th 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 flourish?
- US /ˈflʌɹ.ɪʃ/
- Australia /ˈflɐɹ.ɪ̟ʃ/
- /ˈflɐɹ.ɘʃ/
Flourish has 2 syllables, split flour·ish in writing.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Recordings: En-us-ne-flourish.ogg, En-us-flourish.ogg, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).
Forms of flourish
- flourishes present, singular, he/she/it, plural
- flourishing participle, present
- flourished participle, past
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
What does flourish mean?
The meanings the English Wiktionary records, quoted as written there (source below).
verb
- 1
To thrive or grow well.
The barley flourished in the warm weather.
- 2
To prosper or fare well.
The town flourished with the coming of the railway.
- 3
To be in a period of greatest influence.
His writing flourished before the war.
- 4
To develop; to make thrive; to expand.
- 5
To make bold, sweeping movements with.
They flourished the banner as they stormed the palace.
- 6
To make bold and sweeping, fanciful, or wanton movements, by way of ornament, parade, bravado, etc.; to play with fantastic and irregular motion.
- 7
To use florid language; to indulge in rhetorical figures and lofty expressions.
- 8
To make ornamental strokes with the pen; to write graceful, decorative figures.
noun
- 1
A dramatic gesture such as the waving of a flag.
With many flourishes of the captured banner, they marched down the avenue.
- 2
An ornamentation.
His signature ended with a flourish.
- 3
A ceremonious passage such as a fanfare.
The trumpets blew a flourish as they entered the church.
- 4
A decorative embellishment on a building.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
Flourish in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese
| Language | Words |
|---|---|
| French | fleurir , brandir , gesticulation , fioriture , morceau de bravoure |
| German | gedeihen, blühen, spriessen, grünen, sich gut entwickeln , aufblühen |
| Portuguese | florescer , floreio |
| Spanish | florecer, florescer, medrar , ademanes , floritura, floreo |
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 flourish come from?
From Middle English floryschen, from Old French florir (via the arrhizotonic stem floriss-), from Late Latin flōrīre, from Latin flōrēre, from Latin flōrem (“flower”, noun). Corresponds to flower + -ish.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).