intensity
/ɪnˈtɛnsɪti/noun
intensity is spelled I-N-T-E-N-S-I-T-Y. The wrong spelling people search most is intensivity: about 10 Bing searches a month in the United States (September 2025 to August 2026), about 1 in 123 of all searches for the word. Intensity is a noun meaning “The quality of being intense”. The plural of intensity is intensities.
How many letters and syllables are in intensity?
| Letters | 9: I-N-T-E-N-S-I-T-Y |
|---|---|
| Syllables | 4 (from its American pronunciation) |
| In writing | 14 times per million words; the 5,679th most frequent word form |
| Wrong spellings searched | 1; the most searched, intensivity, about 10 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 intensity?
Intensity is spelled I-N-T-E-N-S-I-T-Y. One wrong spelling is searched or written often enough to measure; together they are about 1 in 123 of the searches for intensity 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 intensity?
Intensity appears 14 times per million words in written English, the 5,679th 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 intensity?
- /ɪnˈtɛnsɪti/
Intensity 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: LL-Q1860_(eng)-Vealhurl-intensity.wav, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).
Forms of intensity
- intensities plural
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
What does intensity mean?
The meanings the English Wiktionary records, quoted as written there (source below).
noun
- 1
The quality of being intense.
- 2
The degree of strength.
- 3
Time-averaged energy flux (the ratio of average power to the area through which the power "flows"); irradiance.
- 4
Any of radiant intensity, luminous intensity or irradiance.
- 5
Synonym of radiance.
- 6
The severity of an earthquake in terms of its effects on the earth's surface, and buildings. The value depends on the distance from the epicentre, and is not to be confused with the magnitude.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
Intensity in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese
In the sense quality of being intense:
| Language | Words |
|---|---|
| French | intensité |
| German | Intensität |
| Portuguese | intensidade |
| Spanish | intensidad, intensión |
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 intensity come from?
From intense + -ity. Cf. also Medieval Latin intensitas.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).