malaria
/məˈlɛəɹi.ə/noun
malaria is spelled M-A-L-A-R-I-A: 7 letters and 4 syllables. It appears 4.5 times per million words in written English, the 12,045th most frequent word form (wordfreq, 2021 data). As a noun, malaria means “A disease spread by mosquito, in which a protozoan, Plasmodium, multiplies in blood every few days” (English Wiktionary, September 2026). The plural of malaria is malarias.
How many letters and syllables are in malaria?
| Letters | 7: M-A-L-A-R-I-A |
|---|---|
| Syllables | 4 (from its American pronunciation) |
| In writing | 4.5 times per million words; the 12,045th 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 malaria?
Malaria appears 4.5 times per million words in written English, the 12,045th 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 malaria?
- /məˈlɛəɹi.ə/
Malaria has 4 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-malaria.ogg, LL-Q1860_(eng)-Microchip08-malaria.wav, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).
Forms of malaria
- malarias plural
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
What does malaria mean?
The meanings the English Wiktionary records, quoted as written there (source below).
noun
- 1
A disease spread by mosquito, in which a protozoan, Plasmodium, multiplies in blood every few days.
- 2
archaicSupposed poisonous air arising from marshy districts, once thought to cause fever.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
Malaria in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese
In the sense disease:
| Language | Words |
|---|---|
| French | paludisme, malaria |
| German | Malaria |
| Portuguese | malária, maleita, paludismo |
| Spanish | paludismo, malaria |
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 malaria come from?
Borrowed from Italian malaria, formed from mal- (“bad”) and aria (“air”). Introduced into English by the Scottish geologist John MacCulloch (1773–1835). Displaced native Old English unlyft (literally “bad air”).
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).