incomplete
/ɪn.kəmˈpliːt/adjective, noun
incomplete is spelled I-N-C-O-M-P-L-E-T-E. The wrong spelling people search most is imcomplete: about 30 Bing searches a month in the United States (September 2025 to August 2026), about 1 in 60 of all searches for the word. Incomplete is an adjective meaning “Not complete; not finished”.
How many letters and syllables are in incomplete?
| Letters | 10: I-N-C-O-M-P-L-E-T-E |
|---|---|
| Syllables | 3 (from its American pronunciation) |
| In writing | 7.1 times per million words; the 8,918th most frequent word form |
| Wrong spellings searched | 1; the most searched, imcomplete, about 30 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 incomplete?
Incomplete is spelled I-N-C-O-M-P-L-E-T-E. One wrong spelling is searched or written often enough to measure; together they are about 1 in 60 of the searches for incomplete 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 incomplete?
Incomplete appears 7.1 times per million words in written English, the 8,918th 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 incomplete?
- /ɪn.kəmˈpliːt/
Incomplete 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-incomplete.ogg, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).
Forms of incomplete
- more incomplete comparative
- most incomplete superlative
- incompletes plural
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
What does incomplete mean?
The meanings the English Wiktionary records, quoted as written there (source below).
adjective
- 1
Not complete; not finished.
Stefania handed in her writing incomplete.
- 2
Of a flower, wanting any of the usual floral organs.
noun
- 1
A multipart file posted to a Usenet newsgroup that is incomplete and thus unusable.
- 2
A multiplayer game that is abandoned because one player disconnects.
- 3
A designation of being incomplete.
He got four incompletes out of five courses last semester.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
Incomplete in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese
In the sense not complete:
| Language | Words |
|---|---|
| French | incomplet |
| German | unvollständig |
| Portuguese | incompleto |
| Spanish | incompleto |
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 incomplete come from?
From Middle English incomplete, incompleet, from Late Latin incomplētus, from in- (“un-; not”) + complētus (“complete”), equivalent to in- (“not”) + complete.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).