pollyanna
/ˌpɒliˈænə/noun
pollyanna is spelled P-O-L-L-Y-A-N-N-A. The wrong spelling people search most is polyanna: about 390 Bing searches a month in the United States (September 2025 to August 2026), about 1 in 10 of all searches for the word. Pollyanna is a noun meaning “Alternative form of Pollyanna”. The plural of pollyanna is pollyannas.
How many letters and syllables are in pollyanna?
| Letters | 9: P-O-L-L-Y-A-N-N-A |
|---|---|
| Syllables | 4 (from its American pronunciation) |
| In writing | about once in every 5 million words; the 69,055th most frequent word form |
| Wrong spellings searched | 1; the most searched, polyanna, about 390 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 pollyanna?
Pollyanna is spelled P-O-L-L-Y-A-N-N-A. One wrong spelling is searched or written often enough to measure; together they are about 1 in 10 of the searches for pollyanna 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 pollyanna?
Pollyanna appears about once in every 5 million words in written English, the 69,055th 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 pollyanna?
- /ˌpɒliˈænə/
Pollyanna has 4 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: LL-Q1860_(eng)-Vealhurl-Pollyanna.wav, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).
Forms of pollyanna
- pollyannas plural
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
What does pollyanna mean?
The meanings the English Wiktionary records, quoted as written there (source below).
noun
- 1
Alternative form of Pollyanna.
noun
- 1
One who is persistently cheerful and optimistic, even when given cause not to be so.
You call her an optimist, but I call her an obnoxious Pollyanna.
- 2
UScolloquialA secret Santa gift exchange.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
Pollyanna in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese
In the sense a persistently cheerful and optimistic person:
| Language | Words |
|---|---|
| French | Pollyanna |
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 pollyanna come from?
From the name of the protagonist in the 1913 novel Pollyanna, by Eleanor Porter.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).