January
Jan·u·ary/ˈd͡ʒæn.juˌɛɹi/proper noun
January is spelled J-A-N-U-A-R-Y, 3 syllables: Jan·u·ary. The wrong spelling people search most is janurary: about 840 Bing searches a month in the United States (September 2025 to August 2026), about 1 in 30 of all searches for the word. January is a proper noun meaning “The first month of the Gregorian calendar, following the December of the previous year and preceding February”.
How many letters and syllables are in January?
| Letters | 7: J-A-N-U-A-R-Y |
|---|---|
| Syllables | 3: Jan·u·ary |
| In writing | 123 times per million words; the 851st most frequent word form |
| Wrong spellings searched | 2; the most searched, janurary, about 840 Bing searches a month (all of them) |
Sources: letters and syllables from the English Wiktionary's hyphenation or pronunciation; 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 January?
January is spelled J-A-N-U-A-R-Y. 2 wrong spellings are searched or written often enough to measure; together they are about 1 in 27 of the searches for January 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 January?
January appears 123 times per million words in written English, the 851st 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 January?
- UK /ˈd͡ʒæn.jʊ.ə.ɹi/
- UK /ˈd͡ʒæn.jə.ɹi/
- US /ˈd͡ʒæn.juˌɛɹi/
January has 3 syllables, split Jan·u·ary in writing.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Recordings: En-us-January.ogg, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).
Forms of January
- Jan
- Jan.
- JAN
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
What does January mean?
The meanings the English Wiktionary records, quoted as written there (source below).
proper noun
- 1
The first month of the Gregorian calendar, following the December of the previous year and preceding February.
Holonyms: calendar year; year
- 2
rareA female given name transferred from the month name [in turn from English].
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
January in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese
In the sense first month of the Gregorian calendar:
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 January come from?
From Middle English Januarie, januari, re-latinised forms of Middle English Janevere, Ieneuer, from Anglo-Norman genever, from Latin Iānuārius (“(month) of Janus”), a compound of Iānus ("Janus") + -ārius (adjectival suffix), with the first element perhaps from the Proto-Indo-European root *yeh₂- (“to go”).
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).