militant
/ˈmɪlɪtənt/adjective, noun
militant is spelled M-I-L-I-T-A-N-T. The wrong spelling people search most is millitant: about 30 Bing searches a month in the United States (September 2025 to August 2026), about 1 in 22 of all searches for the word. Militant is an adjective meaning “Fighting or disposed to fight; belligerent, warlike”.
How many letters and syllables are in militant?
| Letters | 8: M-I-L-I-T-A-N-T |
|---|---|
| Syllables | 3 (from its American pronunciation) |
| In writing | 4.2 times per million words; the 12,578th most frequent word form |
| Wrong spellings searched | 1; the most searched, millitant, about 30 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 militant?
Militant is spelled M-I-L-I-T-A-N-T. One wrong spelling is searched or written often enough to measure; together they are about 1 in 22 of the searches for militant 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 militant?
Militant appears 4.2 times per million words in written English, the 12,578th 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 militant?
- /ˈmɪlɪtənt/
Militant 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: LL-Q1860_(eng)-Vealhurl-militant.wav, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).
Forms of militant
- more militant comparative
- most militant superlative
- militants plural
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
What does militant mean?
The meanings the English Wiktionary records, quoted as written there (source below).
adjective
- 1
Fighting or disposed to fight; belligerent, warlike.
- 2
Aggressively supporting of an idea, group, political or social cause, etc.; adamant, combative.
noun
- 1
obsoleteA soldier, a combatant.
- 2
An entrenched or aggressive adherent to a particular cause, now especially a member of a particular ideological faction.
- 3
Someone who supports the Trotskyist political view expressed in the newspaper Militant.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
Militant in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese
| Language | Words |
|---|---|
| French | militant |
| German | militant, kämpferisch |
| Spanish | militante |
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 militant come from?
From Middle French militant, from Latin mīlitāns, present participle of mīlitāre (“to serve as a soldier”).
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).