initiative
/ɪˈnɪʃ.ə.tɪv/adjective, noun
initiative is spelled I-N-I-T-I-A-T-I-V-E. The wrong spelling people search most is iniative: about 480 Bing searches a month in the United States (September 2025 to August 2026). Initiative is an adjective meaning “In which voter initiatives can be brought to the ballot”.
How many letters and syllables are in initiative?
| Letters | 10: I-N-I-T-I-A-T-I-V-E |
|---|---|
| Syllables | 4 (from its American pronunciation) |
| In writing | 23 times per million words; the 3,875th most frequent word form |
| Wrong spellings searched | 3; the most searched, iniative, about 480 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 initiative?
Initiative is spelled I-N-I-T-I-A-T-I-V-E. 3 wrong spellings are searched or written often enough to measure.
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 initiative?
Initiative appears 23 times per million words in written English, the 3,875th 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 initiative?
- /ɪˈnɪʃ.ə.tɪv/
Initiative has 4 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-initiative.ogg, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).
Forms of initiative
- initiatives plural
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
What does initiative mean?
The meanings the English Wiktionary records, quoted as written there (source below).
adjective
- 1
archaicServing to initiate.
- 2
USIn which voter initiatives can be brought to the ballot.
The second row shows that initiative states fill more constitutional offices by election than noninitiative states, and the difference is statistically significant after controlling for region and population.
noun
- 1
A beginning; a first move.
- 2
A new development; a fresh approach to something; a new way of dealing with a problem.
- 3
The ability to act first or on one's own.
- 4
An issue to be voted on, brought to the ballot by a sufficient number of signatures from among the voting public.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
Initiative in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese
| Language | Words |
|---|---|
| Portuguese | iniciativo, iniciador , iniciativa |
| French | initiative |
| German | Initiative |
| Spanish | iniciativa |
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 initiative come from?
From French initiative, from Medieval Latin *initiativus (“serving to initiate”), from Late Latin initiare (“to begin, to initiate”), from Latin initium (“beginning”), from ineo (“enter, begin”). By surface analysis, initiate + -ive.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).