glee
/ɡliː/noun, verb
glee is spelled G-L-E-E: 4 letters and one syllable. It appears 3.1 times per million words in written English, the 15,146th most frequent word form (wordfreq, 2021 data). As a noun, glee means “Joy; happiness; great delight, especially from one's own good fortune or from another's misfortune” (English Wiktionary, September 2026). The plural of glee is glees.
How many letters and syllables are in glee?
| Letters | 4: G-L-E-E |
|---|---|
| Syllables | 1 (from its American pronunciation) |
| In writing | 3.1 times per million words; the 15,146th 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 and the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary; 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 glee?
Glee appears 3.1 times per million words in written English, the 15,146th 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 glee?
- /ɡliː/
Glee has one syllable (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: LL-Q1860_(eng)-Vealhurl-glee.wav, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).
What rhymes with glee?
No other word on PlainSpell ends in the same sounds as glee.
Spelled with the same letters in another order: lege, gele.
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 glee
- glees plural, present, singular, he/she/it
- gleeing participle, present
- gleed participle, past
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
What does glee mean?
The meanings the English Wiktionary records, quoted as written there (source below).
noun
- 1
Joy; happiness; great delight, especially from one's own good fortune or from another's misfortune.
- 2
Music; minstrelsy; entertainment.
- 3
An unaccompanied part song for three or more solo voices, not necessarily merry.
verb
- 1
To sing a glee (unaccompanied part song).
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
Glee in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese
| Language | Words |
|---|---|
| French | joie |
| German | Freude, Fröhlichkeit, Ausgelassenheit , Rundgesang |
| Portuguese | alegria , música, canção |
| Spanish | alegría |
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 glee come from?
From Middle English gle, from Old English glēo, glīġ, glēow, glīw (“glee, pleasure, mirth, play, sport; music; mockery”), from Proto-West Germanic *glīw, from Proto-Germanic *glīwą (“joy, mirth”), from Proto-Indo-European *gʰlew- (“to joke, make fun, enjoy”).
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).