libido
/lɪˈbiː.dəʊ/noun
libido is spelled L-I-B-I-D-O: 6 letters and 3 syllables. It appears 1.1 times per million words in written English, the 26,776th most frequent word form (wordfreq, 2021 data). As a noun, libido means “Sexual urges or drives” (English Wiktionary, September 2026). The plural of libido is libidos.
How many letters and syllables are in libido?
| Letters | 6: L-I-B-I-D-O |
|---|---|
| Syllables | 3 (from its American pronunciation) |
| In writing | 1.1 times per million words; the 26,776th most frequent word form |
| Wrong spellings searched | none measured in search |
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).
How common is libido?
Libido appears 1.1 times per million words in written English, the 26,776th 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 libido?
- UK /lɪˈbiː.dəʊ/
- UK /ləˈbi.doʊ/
- UK /lɪˈ-/
Libido 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-libido.ogg, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).
Forms of libido
- libidos plural
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
What does libido mean?
The meanings the English Wiktionary records, quoted as written there (source below).
noun
- 1
Sexual urges or drives.
Good grief man, control your libido!
- 2
Drives or mental energies related to or based on sexual instincts but not necessarily sexual in and of themselves.
For Freudians, libido means the desire to "unite and bind" with objects in the world.
- 3
Synonym of albedo in terms of a planet's, such as that of Mars, average surface spectral reflectivity.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
Libido in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese
In the sense sexual urges or drives:
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 libido come from?
Learned borrowing from Latin libīdō (“lust, desire”). Used originally in psychoanalytic contexts.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).