icicle
/ˈaɪs.ɪkl̩/noun
icicle is spelled I-C-I-C-L-E. The wrong spelling people search most is icycle: about 320 Bing searches a month in the United States (September 2025 to August 2026), about 2 in 10 of all searches for the word. Icicle is a noun meaning “A drooping, tapering shape of ice”. The plural of icicle is icicles.
How many letters and syllables are in icicle?
| Letters | 6: I-C-I-C-L-E |
|---|---|
| Syllables | 3 (from its American pronunciation) |
| In writing | about once in every 4 million words; the 57,423rd most frequent word form |
| Wrong spellings searched | 1; the most searched, icycle, about 320 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 icicle?
Icicle is spelled I-C-I-C-L-E. One wrong spelling is searched or written often enough to measure; together they are about 2 in 10 of the searches for icicle 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 icicle?
Icicle appears about once in every 4 million words in written English, the 57,423rd 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 icicle?
- Canada /ˈʌɪsəkəl/
- UK /ˈaɪs.ɪkl̩/
- UK /ˈaɪ.sɪ.kl̩/
Icicle has 3 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)-Vealhurl-icicle.wav, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).
Forms of icicle
- icicles plural
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
What does icicle mean?
The meanings the English Wiktionary records, quoted as written there (source below).
noun
- 1
A drooping, tapering shape of ice.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
Icicle in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese
In the sense a spear-shape of ice:
| Language | Words |
|---|---|
| French | chandelle de glace, glaçon |
| German | Eiszapfen |
| Portuguese | sincelo |
| Spanish | carámbano, chuzo, pinganello, candelizo, pinganillo, candela |
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 icicle come from?
From Middle English isykle, isikel, from Old English *īsġicel, from Proto-West Germanic *īsajikil, *īsajekul, equivalent to ice + ickle. It was assimilated to nouns in -icle, from Latin -iculus–the expected spelling would have -ickle. Cognate with Saterland Frisian Iesjuukel (“icicle”), German Low German Iesjökel, dialectal Danish jisegel (“icicle”), Norwegian isjukel (“icicle”) and Elfdalian aisikkel.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).