lung
/ˈlʌŋ/noun
lung is spelled L-U-N-G: 4 letters and one syllable. It appears 13 times per million words in written English, the 6,047th most frequent word form (wordfreq, 2021 data). As a noun, lung means “A biological organ of vertebrates that controls breathing and oxygenates the blood” (English Wiktionary, September 2026). The plural of lung is lungs.
How many letters and syllables are in lung?
| Letters | 4: L-U-N-G |
|---|---|
| Syllables | 1 (from its American pronunciation) |
| In writing | 13 times per million words; the 6,047th most frequent word form |
| Wrong spellings searched | none measured in search |
| Rhymes with |
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 lung?
Lung appears 13 times per million words in written English, the 6,047th 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 lung?
- US /ˈlʌŋ/
- /lʊŋ/
- /lʊŋɡ/
Lung 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-lung.ogg, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).
What rhymes with lung?
6 words on PlainSpell end in the same sounds as lung from its last stressed vowel (/ʌŋ/):
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 lung
- lungs plural
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
What does lung mean?
The meanings the English Wiktionary records, quoted as written there (source below).
noun
- 1
A biological organ of vertebrates that controls breathing and oxygenates the blood.
- 2
Capacity for exercise or exertion; breath.
He no longer has the lungs to play long rallies like he used to.
- 3
That which supplies oxygen or fresh air, such as trees, parklands, forest, etc., to a place.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
Lung in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese
In the sense organ that extracts oxygen from the air:
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 lung come from?
From Middle English lunge, longe, from Old English lungen, from Proto-Germanic *lunganjō, an enlargement of *lungô (“the light organ, lung”), from Proto-Indo-European *h₁lengʷʰ-, whence ultimately also light. Cognate with West Frisian long, Dutch long, German Lunge, Danish, Norwegian Bokmål, and Norwegian Nynorsk lunge, Swedish lunga, Icelandic lunga, and also Russian лёгкое (ljóxkoje) (lung), Ancient Greek ἐλαφρός (elaphrós, “light in weight”) and perhaps Albanian lungë (“blister, bulge”). Compare Latin levis and Old English lēoht (Modern English light). See also lights (“lungs”).
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).