puerile
/ˈpjʊɹɪl/adjective
puerile is spelled P-U-E-R-I-L-E. The wrong spelling people search most is purile: about 400 Bing searches a month in the United States (September 2025 to August 2026), about 2 in 10 of all searches for the word. Puerile is an adjective meaning “Childish; trifling; silly”.
How many letters and syllables are in puerile?
| Letters | 7: P-U-E-R-I-L-E |
|---|---|
| Syllables | 2 (from its American pronunciation) |
| In writing | about once in every 4 million words; the 61,481st most frequent word form |
| Wrong spellings searched | 1; the most searched, purile, about 400 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 puerile?
Puerile is spelled P-U-E-R-I-L-E. One wrong spelling is searched or written often enough to measure; together they are about 2 in 10 of the searches for puerile 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 puerile?
Puerile appears about once in every 4 million words in written English, the 61,481st 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 puerile?
- UK /ˈpjʊə.ɹaɪl/
- US /ˈpjʊɹɪl/
- US /ˈpjʊɹaɪl/
Puerile has 2 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-puerile.ogg, En-au-puerile.ogg, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).
Forms of puerile
- more puerile comparative
- most puerile superlative
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
What does puerile mean?
The meanings the English Wiktionary records, quoted as written there (source below).
adjective
- 1
Childish; trifling; silly.
- 2
Characteristic of, or pertaining to, a boy or boys; compare puellile.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
Puerile in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese
In the sense characteristic of, or pertaining to, a boy or boys:
| Language | Words |
|---|---|
| Spanish | pueril |
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 puerile come from?
From Latin puerīlis (“childish”), from puer (“child, boy”). By surface analysis, puer + -ile.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).