niece
/nis/noun
niece is spelled N-I-E-C-E: 5 letters and one syllable. It appears 6.6 times per million words in written English, the 9,313th most frequent word form (wordfreq, 2021 data). As a noun, niece means “A daughter of one’s sibling, brother-in-law, or sister-in-law; either the daughter of one's brother ("fraternal niece"), or of one's sister ("sororal…” (English Wiktionary, September 2026). The plural of niece is nieces.
How many letters and syllables are in niece?
| Letters | 5: N-I-E-C-E |
|---|---|
| Syllables | 1 (from its American pronunciation) |
| In writing | 6.6 times per million words; the 9,313th 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 niece?
Niece appears 6.6 times per million words in written English, the 9,313th 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 niece?
- UK /niːs/
- US /nis/
Niece 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-niece.ogg, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).
What rhymes with niece?
9 words on PlainSpell end in the same sounds as niece from its last stressed vowel (/is/):
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 niece
- nieces plural
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
What does niece mean?
The meanings the English Wiktionary records, quoted as written there (source below).
noun
- 1
A daughter of one’s sibling, brother-in-law, or sister-in-law; either the daughter of one's brother ("fraternal niece"), or of one's sister ("sororal niece").
My niece just celebrated her 15th birthday.
- 2
A daughter of one’s cousin or cousin-in-law
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
Niece in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese
In the sense fraternal or sororal niece – see also fraternal niece, sororal niece:
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 niece come from?
From Middle English nece (“niece, granddaughter”), from Old French nece (“niece, granddaughter”) (Modern French nièce (“niece”)) from Late Latin neptia, representing Latin neptis (“granddaughter”), from Proto-Indo-European *néptih₂ (“granddaughter, niece”). Doublet of nift.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).