preceding
/pɹɪˈsiːdɪŋ/adjective, verb
preceding is spelled P-R-E-C-E-D-I-N-G. The wrong spelling people search most is preceeding: about 660 Bing searches a month in the United States (September 2025 to August 2026), about 2 in 10 of all searches for the word. Preceding is an adjective meaning “Occurring before or in front of something else, in time, place, rank or sequence”.
How many letters and syllables are in preceding?
| Letters | 9: P-R-E-C-E-D-I-N-G |
|---|---|
| Syllables | 3 (from its American pronunciation) |
| In writing | 5.5 times per million words; the 10,519th most frequent word form |
| Wrong spellings searched | 1; the most searched, preceeding, about 660 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 preceding?
Preceding is spelled P-R-E-C-E-D-I-N-G. One wrong spelling is searched or written often enough to measure; together they are about 2 in 10 of the searches for preceding 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 preceding?
Preceding appears 5.5 times per million words in written English, the 10,519th 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 preceding?
- /pɹɪˈsiːdɪŋ/
- /pɹiːˈsiːdɪŋ/
Preceding 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-preceding.ogg, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).
What does preceding mean?
The meanings the English Wiktionary records, quoted as written there (source below).
adjective
- 1
Occurring before or in front of something else, in time, place, rank or sequence.
On the preceding Monday Shobana had gone on vacation.
verb
- 1
present participle and gerund of precede
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
How do you abbreviate preceding?
Wiktionary records one abbreviation of preceding: prec..
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
Preceding in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese
In the sense foregoing; occurring before or in front of something else:
| Language | Words |
|---|---|
| German | führend, vorherig, vorausgehend |
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 preceding come from?
From Middle English precedyng, precedenge, present participle of Middle English preceden (“to precede”), equivalent to precede + -ing.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).