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PlainSpell

pencil

pen·cilUK /ˈpɛnsɪl/noun, verb

pencil is spelled P-E-N-C-I-L, 2 syllables: pen·cil. The wrong spelling people search most is pensle: about 20 Bing searches a month in the United States (September 2025 to August 2026), about 1 in 667 of all searches for the word. Pencil is a noun meaning “A writing utensil with a graphite (commonly referred to as lead) shaft, usually blended with clay, clad in…”. The plural of pencil is pencils.

How many letters and syllables are in pencil?

Letters6: P-E-N-C-I-L
Syllables2: pen·cil
In writing8.9 times per million words; the 7,672nd most frequent word form
Wrong spellings searched1; the most searched, pensle, about 20 Bing searches a month (all of them)

Sources: letters and syllables from the English Wiktionary's hyphenation or pronunciation; 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 pencil?

Pencil is spelled P-E-N-C-I-L. One wrong spelling is searched or written often enough to measure; together they are about 1 in 672 of the searches for pencil in either form.

pencilthe right spelling13,420 searches a month
pensles in place of c, l in place of i, e in place of l20 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 pencil?

Pencil appears 8.9 times per million words in written English, the 7,672nd 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 pencil?

  • /ˈpɛnsəl/
  • /ˈpɛntsəl/
  • UK /ˈpɛnsɪl/

Pencil has 2 syllables, split pen·cil in writing.

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Recordings: En-us-pencil.ogg, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).

Words people confuse with pencil

Also written: penciled, pencilled.

Sources: English Wiktionary (homophones, alternative spellings).

Forms of pencil

  • pencils plural, present, singular, he/she/it
  • penciling US, participle, present
  • pencilling UK, participle, present
  • penciled US, participle, past
  • pencilled UK, participle, past

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

What does pencil mean?

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

noun

  1. 1

    A writing utensil with a graphite (commonly referred to as lead) shaft, usually blended with clay, clad in wood, and sharpened to a taper.

  2. 2

    An aggregate or collection of rays of light, especially when diverging from, or converging to, a point.

  3. 3

    A family of geometric objects with a common property, such as the set of lines that pass through a given point in a projective plane.

  4. 4

    A paintbrush.

  5. 5

    obsoleterareA small medicated bougie.

  6. 6

    obsoleteA small, thin tuft of hairs or feathers.

  7. 7

    Ellipsis of power of the pencil.

verb

  1. 1

    To write (something) using a pencil.

    I penciled (BrE: pencilled) a brief reminder in my notebook.

  2. 2

    To mark with, or as if with, a pencil.

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

Pencil in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese

LanguageWords
Frenchcrayon (graphite writing-instrument)
GermanBleistift, Buntstift (graphite writing-instrument), Griffel, Tafelstift (slate writing-instrument)
Portugueselápis (graphite writing-instrument)
Spanishlápiz (graphite writing-instrument)

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 pencil come from?

From Anglo-Norman and Old French pincil (see the variant pincel, which gave rise to Modern French pinceau (“paintbrush”)), from Latin pēnicillum, diminutive of pēniculus (“brush”), itself a diminutive of pēnis (“tail; penis”). Doublet of penis. Not related to pen.

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

What to look up after pencil