jean
/d͡ʒiːn/noun
jean is spelled J-E-A-N: 4 letters and one syllable. It appears 23 times per million words in written English, the 3,875th most frequent word form (wordfreq, 2021 data, counting Jean, the name). As a noun, jean means “Denim” (English Wiktionary, September 2026). The plural of jean is jeans.
How many letters and syllables are in jean?
| Letters | 4: J-E-A-N |
|---|---|
| Syllables | 1 (from its American pronunciation) |
| In writing | 23 times per million words; the 3,875th most frequent word form |
| Wrong spellings searched | none measured in search |
| Pairs people search | |
| Sounds like | |
| Same letters |
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 common is jean?
Jean appears 23 times per million words in written English, the 3,875th most frequent word form in the list. The list counts every capitalisation together, so this includes Jean, the name.
Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).
How do you pronounce jean?
- /d͡ʒiːn/
- /d͡ʒeɪn/
Jean has one syllable (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-uk-jean.ogg, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).
Words people confuse with jean
Word pairs people search, with the monthly searches for “a vs b” (G: Google, B: Bing, United States).
Sounds like: gene (Wiktionary's homophone list; some hold only in some accents).
Also written: jane.
Sources: Google and Bing searches (September 2025 to August 2026, through DataForSEO); English Wiktionary (homophones, alternative spellings).
What rhymes with jean?
No other word on PlainSpell ends in the same sounds as jean.
Spelled with the same letters in another order: jane.
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 jean
- jeans plural
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
What does jean mean?
The meanings the English Wiktionary records, quoted as written there (source below).
noun
- 1
Denim.
She wore a tattered jean jacket.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
Where does jean come from?
From the Middle English Gene (“Genoa”), from the Old French Jannes. Bleu de Gênes (“Genovese blue”) was a blue dye made in Genoa used to tint the denim cloth produced in Nîmes (de Nîmes). Doublet of Genoa and Geneva and distantly related to knee.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).