Skip to main content
PlainSpell

heaven

heav·en/ˈhɛvən/noun

heaven is spelled H-E-A-V-E-N: 6 letters and 2 syllables (heav·en). It appears 38 times per million words in written English, the 2,581st most frequent word form (wordfreq, 2021 data). As a noun, heaven means “The distant sky in which the sun, moon, and stars appear or move; the firmament; the celestial spheres” (English Wiktionary, September 2026). The plural of heaven is heavens.

How many letters and syllables are in heaven?

Letters6: H-E-A-V-E-N
Syllables2: heav·en
In writing38 times per million words; the 2,581st most frequent word form
Wrong spellings searchednone measured in search

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).

How common is heaven?

Heaven appears 38 times per million words in written English, the 2,581st 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 heaven?

  • /ˈhɛvən/
  • [ˈhɛvn̩]

Heaven has 2 syllables, split heav·en in writing.

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Recordings: En-uk-heaven.ogg, En-us-heaven.ogg, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).

Forms of heaven

  • heavens plural, present, singular, he/she/it
  • heav'n
  • heavening participle, present
  • heavened participle, past
  • more heaven comparative
  • most heaven superlative

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

What does heaven mean?

The meanings the English Wiktionary records, quoted as written there (source below).

noun

  1. 1

    datedThe distant sky in which the sun, moon, and stars appear or move; the firmament; the celestial spheres.

    All that is vnder the heauen.

  2. 2

    obsoleteThe near sky in which weather, flying animals, etc. appear; (obsolete) the atmosphere; the climate.

  3. 3

    obsoleteA model displaying the movement of the celestial bodies, an orrery.

  4. 4

    The abode of God and of the angels and saints in His presence.

    And there was a battel in heauen. Michael & his Angels foght againſt the dragon, and the dragon foght & his Angels. But they preuailed not, nether was their place founde anie more in heauen.

  5. 5

    The abode of the Abrahamic God; similar abodes of the gods in other religions and traditions, such as Mount Olympus.

    As he [Muhammad] was returning, in the fourth Heaven, Moses advised him to goe back to God.

  6. 6

    Providence, the will of God or the council of the gods; fate.

  7. 7

    The afterlife of the blessed dead, traditionally conceived as opposed to an afterlife of the wicked and unjust (compare hell); specifically

    I wonder what your idea of heaven would be–A beautiful vacuum filled with wealthy monogamists, all powerful and members of the best families drinking themselves to death. And hell would probably be an ugly vacuum full of poor polygamists un

  8. 8

    Paradise, the afterlife of the souls who are not sent to a place of punishment or purification such as hell, purgatory, or limbo; the state or condition of being in the presence of God after death.

verb

  1. 1

    obsoleteTo transport to the abode of God, the gods, or the blessed.

  2. 2

    obsoleteTo beatify, enchant, or please greatly.

  3. 3

    obsoleteTo beautify, to make into a paradise.

adjective

  1. 1

    obsoleteBeing heavenly.

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

Heaven in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese

LanguageWords
Frenchciel (sky), paradis, au-delà, cieux (paradise and upper-world)
GermanHimmel, Firmament (sky), Paradies (paradise and upper-world)
Portuguesecéu (sky), Paraíso (paradise and upper-world)

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 heaven come from?

From a wide variety of Middle English forms including hevene, heven, hevin, and hewin (“heaven, sky”), from Old English heofon, heofone (“heaven, sky”), from Proto-West Germanic *hebn (“heaven, sky”), of uncertain origin.

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

What to look up after heaven