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PlainSpell

list

/lɪst/noun, verb

list is spelled L-I-S-T: 4 letters and one syllable. It appears 191 times per million words in written English, the 531st most frequent word form (wordfreq, 2021 data). As a noun, list means “A strip of fabric, especially from the edge of a piece of cloth” (English Wiktionary, September 2026). The plural of list is lists.

How many letters and syllables are in list?

Letters4: L-I-S-T
Syllables1 (from its American pronunciation)
In writing191 times per million words; the 531st most frequent word form
Wrong spellings searchednone measured in 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); rhymes and same-letter words are computed by PlainSpell from its own word list.

How common is list?

List appears 191 times per million words in written English, the 531st 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 list?

  • /lɪst/

List 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-us-list.ogg, En-au-list.ogg, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).

Words people confuse with list

Sounds like: Liszt (Wiktionary's homophone list; some hold only in some accents).

Sources: English Wiktionary (homophones, alternative spellings).

What rhymes with list?

No other word on PlainSpell ends in the same sounds as list.

Spelled with the same letters in another order: slit, silt.

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 list

  • lists plural, present, singular, he/she/it
  • listing participle, present
  • listed participle, past

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).

What does list mean?

The meanings the English Wiktionary records, quoted as written there (source below).

noun

  1. 1

    A strip of fabric, especially from the edge of a piece of cloth.

  2. 2

    Material used for cloth selvage.

  3. 3

    A register or roll of paper consisting of a compilation or enumeration of a set of possible items; the compilation or enumeration itself.

  4. 4

    The barriers or palisades used to fence off a space for jousting or tilting tournaments.

  5. 5

    The scene of a military contest; the ground or field of combat; an enclosed space that serves as a battlefield; the site of a pitched battle.

  6. 6

    A codified representation of a list used to store data or in processing; especially, in the Lisp programming language, a data structure consisting of a sequence of zero or more items.

  7. 7

    A little square moulding; a fillet or listel.

  8. 8

    A narrow strip of wood, especially sapwood, cut from the edge of a board or plank.

  9. 9

    A tilt to a building.

  10. 10

    A careening or tilting to one side, usually not intentionally or under a vessel's own power.

  11. 11

    archaicArt; craft; cunning; skill.

  12. 12

    obsoleteDesire, inclination.

verb

  1. 1

    To create or recite a list.

  2. 2

    To place in listings.

  3. 3

    To sew together, as strips of cloth, so as to make a show of colours, or to form a border.

  4. 4

    To cover with list, or with strips of cloth; to put list on; to stripe as if with list.

    to list a door

  5. 5

    To plough and plant with a lister.

  6. 6

    To prepare (land) for a cotton crop by making alternating beds and alleys with a hoe.

  7. 7

    To cut away a narrow strip, as of sapwood, from the edge of.

    to list a board

  8. 8

    To enclose (a field, etc.) for combat.

  9. 9

    To listen.

  10. 10

    To listen to.

  11. 11

    To cause (something) to tilt to one side.

    The steady wind listed the ship.

  12. 12

    To tilt to one side.

    The ship listed to port.

  13. 13

    archaicTo desire, like, or wish (to do something).

  14. 14

    archaicTo be pleasing to.

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).

List in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese

LanguageWords
Frenchlisière (strip of fabric), liste (enumeration or compilation of items), lice (barriers for tournaments), moulure, plinthe (narrow strip of wood), lister (to create or recite a list)
Portuguesetira (strip of fabric), lista, rol (enumeration or compilation of items), listar (to create or recite a list), agradar (to be pleasing to), banda (nautical: tilting or careening to one side)
Spanishtira, lista (strip of fabric), relación, nómina, rol (enumeration or compilation of items), hacer una lista (to create or recite a list)
GermanListe (enumeration or compilation of items), aufzählen (to create or recite a list), neigen (to be pleasing to), Schlagseite, Krängung (nautical: tilting or careening to one side), wünschen (to desire, like, wish)

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 list come from?

From Middle English lī̆st, lī̆ste (“band, stripe; hem, selvage; border, edge, rim; list, specification; barriers enclosing area for jousting, etc.”), from Old English līste (“hem, edge, strip”), or Old French liste, listre (“border; band; strip of paper; list”), or Medieval Latin lista, all from Proto-West Germanic *līstā, possibly from Proto-Indo-European *leys- (“to trace, track”).

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).

What to look up after list