hilarious
/hɪˈlɛ(ə)ɹ.i.əs/adjective
hilarious is spelled H-I-L-A-R-I-O-U-S. The wrong spelling people search most is hillarious: about 150 Bing searches a month in the United States (September 2025 to August 2026), about 1 in 19 of all searches for the word. Hilarious is an adjective meaning “Very funny; causing great merriment and laughter”.
How many letters and syllables are in hilarious?
| Letters | 9: H-I-L-A-R-I-O-U-S |
|---|---|
| Syllables | 4 (from its American pronunciation) |
| In writing | 19 times per million words; the 4,521st most frequent word form |
| Wrong spellings searched | 2; the most searched, hillarious, about 150 Bing searches a month (all of them) |
| Rhymes with |
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); rhymes and same-letter words are computed by PlainSpell from its own word list.
How do you spell hilarious?
Hilarious is spelled H-I-L-A-R-I-O-U-S. 2 wrong spellings are searched or written often enough to measure; together they are about 1 in 11 of the searches for hilarious 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 hilarious?
Hilarious appears 19 times per million words in written English, the 4,521st 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 hilarious?
- UK /hɪˈlɛə.ɹi.əs/
- US /hɪˈlɛ(ə)ɹ.i.əs/
- /hɪˈlæɹ.i.əs/
Hilarious 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: LL-Q1860_(eng)-Wodencafe-hilarious.wav, En-us-ne-hilarious.ogg, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).
What rhymes with hilarious?
4 words on PlainSpell end in the same sounds as hilarious from its last stressed vowel (/ɛɹiəs/):
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 hilarious
- more hilarious comparative
- most hilarious superlative
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
What does hilarious mean?
The meanings the English Wiktionary records, quoted as written there (source below).
adjective
- 1
Very funny; causing great merriment and laughter.
a hilarious joke
- 2
Full of hilarity; merry.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
How do you abbreviate hilarious?
Wiktionary records 2 abbreviations of hilarious: hilar, hilars.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
Hilarious in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese
In the sense very funny; causing great merriment and laughter:
| Language | Words |
|---|---|
| French | hilarant |
| German | zum Totlachen, urkomisch |
| Portuguese | hilário, hilariante |
| Spanish | hilarante, descacharrante, desopilante |
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 hilarious come from?
Learned borrowing from Latin hilaris (“cheerful”) + -ious, from Ancient Greek ἱλαρός (hilarós, “cheerful, merry”).
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).