important
/ɪmˈpɔː.tənt/adjective
important is spelled I-M-P-O-R-T-A-N-T. The wrong spelling people search most is inportant: about 90 Bing searches a month in the United States (September 2025 to August 2026), about 1 in 93 of all searches for the word. Important is an adjective meaning “Having relevant and crucial value; having import”.
How many letters and syllables are in important?
| Letters | 9: I-M-P-O-R-T-A-N-T |
|---|---|
| Syllables | 3 (from its American pronunciation) |
| In writing | 275 times per million words; the 347th most frequent word form |
| Wrong spellings searched | 4; the most searched, inportant, about 90 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 important?
Important is spelled I-M-P-O-R-T-A-N-T. 4 wrong spellings are searched or written often enough to measure; together they are about 1 in 53 of the searches for important 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 important?
Important appears 275 times per million words in written English, the 347th 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 important?
- UK /ɪmˈpɔː.tənt/
- UK [ɪmˈpʰɔːtənt̚]
- UK [ɪmˈpʰɔːʔn̩ʔ]
Important 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: En-us-important.ogg, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).
What rhymes with important?
One word on PlainSpell end in the same sounds as important from its last stressed vowel (/ɔtənt/, British pronunciation):
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 important
- more important comparative
- most important superlative
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
What does important mean?
The meanings the English Wiktionary records, quoted as written there (source below).
adjective
- 1
Having relevant and crucial value; having import.
We thought it important for there to be a fire escape at the back of every building.
- 2
obsoletePompous; self-important.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
How do you abbreviate important?
Wiktionary records one abbreviation of important: imp..
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
Important in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese
In the sense having relevant and crucial value:
| Language | Words |
|---|---|
| French | important |
| German | wichtig |
| Portuguese | importante |
| Spanish | importante |
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 important come from?
From Middle English important, from Medieval Latin important-, importāns. By surface analysis, import (“to be important”) + -ant. Displaced native Old English hēah and hefiġ.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).