loathsome
/ˈloʊð.səm/adjective
loathsome is spelled L-O-A-T-H-S-O-M-E. The wrong spelling people search most is loathesome: about 50 Bing searches a month in the United States (September 2025 to August 2026), about 1 in 14 of all searches for the word. Loathsome is an adjective meaning “Highly offensive; abominable, sickening”.
How many letters and syllables are in loathsome?
| Letters | 9: L-O-A-T-H-S-O-M-E |
|---|---|
| Syllables | 2 (from its American pronunciation) |
| In writing | about once in every 2 million words; the 41,154th most frequent word form |
| Wrong spellings searched | 1; the most searched, loathesome, about 50 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 loathsome?
Loathsome is spelled L-O-A-T-H-S-O-M-E. One wrong spelling is searched or written often enough to measure; together they are about 1 in 14 of the searches for loathsome 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 loathsome?
Loathsome appears about once in every 2 million words in written English, the 41,154th 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 loathsome?
- UK /ˈləʊð.səm/
- UK /ˈləʊθ.səm/
- US /ˈloʊð.səm/
Loathsome has 2 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-loathsome.wav, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).
Forms of loathsome
- more loathsome comparative
- most loathsome superlative
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
What does loathsome mean?
The meanings the English Wiktionary records, quoted as written there (source below).
adjective
- 1
Highly offensive; abominable, sickening.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
Loathsome in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese
In the sense highly offensive; abominable, sickening:
| Language | Words |
|---|---|
| French | odieux, dégoûtant |
| German | ekelhaft, abscheulich, scheußlich, widerlich, widerwärtig, verabscheuenswürdig |
| Portuguese | nojento, repugnante, abominável, asqueroso, desprezível, detestável |
| Spanish | aborrecible, detestable, odioso, abominable, repugnante, nefando |
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 loathsome come from?
From Middle English lothsum, from Old English *lāþsum, from Proto-West Germanic *laiþasam, equivalent to loath + -some. Cognate with Middle Low German lêtsam (“arduous”), German leidsam (“sad, sorry”).
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).