hypothesis
hy·po·the·sis/haɪˈpɒθɪsɪs/noun
hypothesis is spelled H-Y-P-O-T-H-E-S-I-S, 4 syllables: hy·po·the·sis. The wrong spelling people search most is hypothosis: about 90 Bing searches a month in the United States (September 2025 to August 2026), about 1 in 68 of all searches for the word. Hypothesis is a noun meaning “A tentative conjecture explaining an observation, phenomenon or scientific problem and that can be tested by…”. The plural of hypothesis is hypotheses.
How many letters and syllables are in hypothesis?
| Letters | 10: H-Y-P-O-T-H-E-S-I-S |
|---|---|
| Syllables | 4: hy·po·the·sis |
| In writing | 7.4 times per million words; the 8,669th most frequent word form |
| Wrong spellings searched | 1; the most searched, hypothosis, about 90 Bing searches a month (all of them) |
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); 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 hypothesis?
Hypothesis is spelled H-Y-P-O-T-H-E-S-I-S. One wrong spelling is searched or written often enough to measure; together they are about 1 in 68 of the searches for hypothesis 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 hypothesis?
Hypothesis appears 7.4 times per million words in written English, the 8,669th 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 hypothesis?
- UK /haɪˈpɒθɪsɪs/
- UK /hɪˈpɒθɪsɪs/
- UK /həˈpɒθɪsɪs/
Hypothesis has 4 syllables, split hy·po·the·sis in writing.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Recordings: En-us-hypothesis.ogg, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).
Forms of hypothesis
- hypotheses plural
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
What does hypothesis mean?
The meanings the English Wiktionary records, quoted as written there (source below).
noun
- 1
A tentative conjecture explaining an observation, phenomenon or scientific problem and that can be tested by further observation, investigation, or experimentation.
Far too many of us have been taught in school that a scientist, in the course of trying to figure something out, will first come up with a "hypothesis" (a guess or surmise–not necessarily even an "educated" guess). ... [But t]he word "hypot
- 2
An assumption taken to be true for the purpose of argument or investigation.
- 3
The antecedent of a conditional statement.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
How do you abbreviate hypothesis?
Wiktionary records one abbreviation of hypothesis: hypoth.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
Hypothesis in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese
In the sense tentative conjecture in science:
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 hypothesis come from?
Recorded since 1596, from Middle French hypothese, from Late Latin hypothesis, from Ancient Greek ὑπόθεσις (hupóthesis, “base, basis of an argument, supposition”, literally “a placing under”), itself from ὑποτίθημι (hupotíthēmi, “to set before, suggest”), from ὑπό (hupó, “below”) + τίθημι (títhēmi, “to put, place”). Compare hypothec.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).