personnel
/pɝ.səˈnɛl/noun
personnel is spelled P-E-R-S-O-N-N-E-L. The wrong spelling people search most is personnell: about 270 Bing searches a month in the United States (September 2025 to August 2026), about 1 in 38 of all searches for the word. Personnel is a noun meaning “Collection of people in an organization, such as employees and office staff, members of the military, etc”. The plural of personnel is personnels.
How many letters and syllables are in personnel?
| Letters | 9: P-E-R-S-O-N-N-E-L |
|---|---|
| Syllables | 3 (from its American pronunciation) |
| In writing | 36 times per million words; the 2,669th most frequent word form |
| Wrong spellings searched | 1; the most searched, personnell, about 270 Bing searches a month (all of them) |
| Pairs people 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); 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); rhymes and same-letter words are computed by PlainSpell from its own word list.
How do you spell personnel?
Personnel is spelled P-E-R-S-O-N-N-E-L. One wrong spelling is searched or written often enough to measure; together they are about 1 in 38 of the searches for personnel 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 personnel?
Personnel appears 36 times per million words in written English, the 2,669th 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 personnel?
- US /pɝ.səˈnɛl/
- US /pɝsˈnɛl/
- UK /pɜː.səˈnɛl/
Personnel 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-us-personnel.ogg, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).
Words people confuse with personnel
Word pairs people search, with the monthly searches for “a vs b” (G: Google, B: Bing, United States).
Sources: Google and Bing searches (September 2025 to August 2026, through DataForSEO); English Wiktionary (homophones, alternative spellings).
What rhymes with personnel?
The 12 most written words on PlainSpell end in the same sounds as personnel from its last stressed vowel (/ɛl/):
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 personnel
- personnels plural
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
What does personnel mean?
The meanings the English Wiktionary records, quoted as written there (source below).
noun
- 1
Collection of people in an organization, such as employees and office staff, members of the military, etc.
- 2
nonstandardA member of an organization such as an army.
- 3
A human resources department.
I've just had a letter from personnel.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
How do you abbreviate personnel?
Wiktionary records one abbreviation of personnel: Pers..
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
Personnel in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese
In the sense members of an organization:
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 personnel come from?
Unadapted borrowing from French personnel. Doublet of personal.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).