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freon

/ˈfɹiːɒn/noun

freon is a noun meaning “Any of several nonflammable refrigerants based on halogenated hydrocarbon including R-12, R-22, and R-23” (English Wiktionary, September 2026). It is spelled F-R-E-O-N and has 2 syllables, and it appears about once in every 6 million words in written English (wordfreq, 2021 data). The plural of freon is freons.

What does freon mean?

noun

  1. 1

    Any of several nonflammable refrigerants based on halogenated hydrocarbon including R-12, R-22, and R-23.

  2. 2

    informalA gaseous ozone-depleting refrigerant.

  3. 3

    informalA chlorofluorocarbon.

noun

as Freon
  1. 1

    Alternative letter-case form of freon.

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

How do you pronounce freon?

  • /ˈfɹiːɒn/

Freon 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-au-freon.ogg, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).

Forms of freon

  • freons plural

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

How common is freon?

Freon appears about once in every 6 million words in written English, the 73,203rd 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).

Freon in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese

In the sense non-flammable refrigerant:

LanguageWords
Frenchfréon

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 freon come from?

A genericization of the Chemours trademark "Freon." According to Flood, the name was formed from freeze and the arbitrary suffix -on.

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