gratuitous
/ɡɹəˈtu.ɪt.əs/adjective
gratuitous is spelled G-R-A-T-U-I-T-O-U-S. The wrong spelling people search most is gratuitious: about 60 Bing searches a month in the United States (September 2025 to August 2026), about 1 in 26 of all searches for the word. Gratuitous is an adjective meaning “Given freely; unearned”.
How many letters and syllables are in gratuitous?
| Letters | 10: G-R-A-T-U-I-T-O-U-S |
|---|---|
| Syllables | 4 (from its American pronunciation) |
| In writing | about once in every 1 million words; the 31,168th most frequent word form |
| Wrong spellings searched | 1; the most searched, gratuitious, about 60 Bing searches a month (all of them) |
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).
How do you spell gratuitous?
Gratuitous is spelled G-R-A-T-U-I-T-O-U-S. One wrong spelling is searched or written often enough to measure; together they are about 1 in 26 of the searches for gratuitous 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 gratuitous?
Gratuitous appears about once in every 1 million words in written English, the 31,168th 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 gratuitous?
- UK /ɡɹəˈtjuː.ɪt.əs/
- US /ɡɹəˈtu.ɪt.əs/
Gratuitous has 4 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-gratuitous.ogg, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).
Forms of gratuitous
- more gratuitous comparative
- most gratuitous superlative
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
What does gratuitous mean?
The meanings the English Wiktionary records, quoted as written there (source below).
adjective
- 1
Given freely; unearned.
- 2
Unjustified or unnecessary; not called for by the circumstances.
gratuitous violence
- 3
extraneous, interpolated.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
Gratuitous in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese
In the sense given freely, unearned:
| Language | Words |
|---|---|
| French | gratuit |
| German | gratis, kostenlos, geschenkt, frei, unentgeltlich, unverdient |
| Portuguese | gratuito |
| Spanish | gratuito |
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 gratuitous come from?
From Latin grātuītus (“free”), from Latin grātia (“favor”), grātus (“showing favor”).
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).