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peculiar

/pɪˈkjul.jɚ/adjective, noun

peculiar is spelled P-E-C-U-L-I-A-R. The wrong spelling people search most is peculure: about 10 Bing searches a month in the United States (September 2025 to August 2026), about 1 in 256 of all searches for the word. Peculiar is an adjective meaning “Out of the ordinary; odd; strange; unusual”.

How many letters and syllables are in peculiar?

Letters8: P-E-C-U-L-I-A-R
Syllables3 (from its American pronunciation)
In writing4.7 times per million words; the 11,685th most frequent word form
Wrong spellings searched1; the most searched, peculure, about 10 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 peculiar?

Peculiar is spelled P-E-C-U-L-I-A-R. One wrong spelling is searched or written often enough to measure; together they are about 1 in 254 of the searches for peculiar in either form.

peculiarthe right spelling2,530 searches a month
peculureu in place of i, r in place of a, e in place of r10 searches a month

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 peculiar?

Peculiar appears 4.7 times per million words in written English, the 11,685th 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 peculiar?

  • UK /pɪˈkjuː.li.ə/
  • UK /pəˈkjuː.li.ə/
  • US /pɪˈkjul.jɚ/

Peculiar 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: En-GB-peculiar.ogg, En-us-peculiar.ogg, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).

Forms of peculiar

  • more peculiar comparative
  • most peculiar superlative
  • peculiars plural

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).

What does peculiar mean?

The meanings the English Wiktionary records, quoted as written there (source below).

adjective

  1. 1

    Out of the ordinary; odd; strange; unusual.

    The sky had a peculiar appearance before the storm.

  2. 2

    Common or usual for a certain place or circumstance; specific or particular.

    Kangaroos are peculiar to Australia.

  3. 3

    datedOne's own; belonging solely or especially to an individual; not shared or possessed by others.

  4. 4

    datedParticular; individual; special; appropriate.

noun

  1. 1

    That which is peculiar; a sole or exclusive property; a prerogative; a characteristic.

    before 1716, Robert South, Twelve Sermons If anything can legalize revenge, it should be injury from an extremely obliged person; but revenge is so absolutely the peculiar of heaven.

  2. 2

    UKan ecclesiastical district, parish, chapel or church outside the jurisdiction of the bishop of the diocese in which it is situated.

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).

Peculiar in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese

LanguageWords
Frenchparticulier, extraordinaire, bizarre, curieux (out of the ordinary)
Germanmerkwürdig, seltsam, eigen (out of the ordinary), charakteristisch (common or usual for a particular place or…)
Portuguesepeculiar, estranho, esquisito (out of the ordinary), particular (common or usual for a particular place or…)
Spanishpeculiar, raro (out of the ordinary), específico (common or usual for a particular place or…)

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 peculiar come from?

From Latin pecūliāris (“one's own”), from pecūlium (“private property”), from pecus (“cattle”).

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).

What to look up after peculiar