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po

/pəʊ/noun, adjective

po is spelled P-O: 2 letters and one syllable. It appears 9.3 times per million words in written English, the 7,445th most frequent word form (wordfreq, 2021 data, counting Po, the name). As a noun, po means “A chamberpot” (English Wiktionary, September 2026). The plural of po is pos.

How many letters and syllables are in po?

Letters2: P-O
Syllables1 (from its American pronunciation)
In writing9.3 times per million words; the 7,445th most frequent word form
Wrong spellings searchednone measured in search

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).

How common is po?

Po appears 9.3 times per million words in written English, the 7,445th most frequent word form in the list. The list counts every capitalisation together, so this includes Po, the name.

Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).

How do you pronounce po?

  • /pəʊ/

As an adjective (“Thinner; with more water added to dilute it”): [p˭o], /pəʊ/.

Po 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-au-po.ogg, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).

Words people confuse with po

Also written: poe, poh.

Sources: English Wiktionary (homophones, alternative spellings).

Forms of po

  • pos plural
  • po'
  • poh

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

What does po mean?

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

noun

  1. 1

    AustraliaUKcolloquialdatedA chamberpot.

  2. 2

    slangThe police.

  3. 3

    obsoleteA peacock.

adjective

  1. 1

    colloquialThinner; with more water added to dilute it.

noun

as PO
  1. 1

    Initialism of post office.

  2. 2

    Initialism of purchase order.

  3. 3

    Initialism of police officer.

  4. 4

    Initialism of probation officer.

  5. 5

    Initialism of petty officer.

  6. 6

    Initialism of principal officer.

  7. 7

    Initialism of playoff.

  8. 8

    Initialism of project officer.

adverb

as PO
  1. 1

    Initialism of per os (“by mouth, orally”).

adjective

as PO
  1. 1

    Initialism of peroral.

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

Where does po come from?

A diminutive of pot.

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

What to look up after po