hygiene
/ˈhaɪˌd͡ʒiːn/noun
hygiene is spelled H-Y-G-I-E-N-E. The wrong spelling people search most is hygeine: about 930 Bing searches a month in the United States (September 2025 to August 2026), about 1 in 10 of all searches for the word. Hygiene is a noun meaning “The science of health, its promotion and preservation”. The plural of hygiene is hygienes.
How many letters and syllables are in hygiene?
| Letters | 7: H-Y-G-I-E-N-E |
|---|---|
| Syllables | 2 (from its American pronunciation) |
| In writing | 6.2 times per million words; the 9,735th most frequent word form |
| Wrong spellings searched | 2; the most searched, hygeine, about 930 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 hygiene?
Hygiene is spelled H-Y-G-I-E-N-E. 2 wrong spellings are searched or written often enough to measure; together they are about 2 in 10 of the searches for hygiene 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 hygiene?
Hygiene appears 6.2 times per million words in written English, the 9,735th 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 hygiene?
- UK /ˈhʌɪˌd͡ʒiːn/
- US /ˈhaɪˌd͡ʒiːn/
- US /haɪˈd͡ʒiːn/
Hygiene 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-us-hygiene.ogg, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).
Forms of hygiene
- hygienes plural
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
What does hygiene mean?
The meanings the English Wiktionary records, quoted as written there (source below).
noun
- 1
The science of health, its promotion and preservation.
- 2
Those conditions and practices that promote and preserve health.
Hygiene is an important consideration in places where food is prepared.
- 3
Cleanliness.
They have poor personal hygiene.
- 4
slangThe property of having an expansion that is guaranteed not to cause the accidental capture of identifiers.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
Hygiene in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese
In the sense conditions and practices that promote and preserve health:
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 hygiene come from?
From French hygiène, from Ancient Greek ὑγιεινή (τέχνη) (hugieinḗ (tékhnē), literally “art of health”), from ὑγιεινός (hugieinós, “of health, good for the health, wholesome, sound, healthy”), from ὑγιής (hugiḗs, “healthy, sound”).
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).