pusillanimous
/ˌpjuːsɪlˈænɪməs/adjective
pusillanimous is spelled P-U-S-I-L-L-A-N-I-M-O-U-S. The wrong spelling people search most is pusilanimous: about 100 Bing searches a month in the United States (September 2025 to August 2026), about 1 in 29 of all searches for the word. Pusillanimous is an adjective meaning “Showing ignoble cowardice, or contemptible timidity”.
How many letters and syllables are in pusillanimous?
| Letters | 13: P-U-S-I-L-L-A-N-I-M-O-U-S |
|---|---|
| Syllables | 5 (from its American pronunciation) |
| In writing | about once in every 17 million words; the 122,704th most frequent word form |
| Wrong spellings searched | 1; the most searched, pusilanimous, about 100 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 pusillanimous?
Pusillanimous is spelled P-U-S-I-L-L-A-N-I-M-O-U-S. One wrong spelling is searched or written often enough to measure; together they are about 1 in 29 of the searches for pusillanimous 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 pusillanimous?
Pusillanimous appears about once in every 17 million words in written English, the 122,704th 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 pusillanimous?
- /ˌpjuːsɪlˈænɪməs/
- /ˌpjuːsəlˈænəməs/
Pusillanimous has 5 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-pusillanimous.ogg, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).
Forms of pusillanimous
- more pusillanimous comparative
- most pusillanimous superlative
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
What does pusillanimous mean?
The meanings the English Wiktionary records, quoted as written there (source below).
adjective
- 1
Showing ignoble cowardice, or contemptible timidity.
The soldier deserted his troop in a pusillanimous manner.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
Pusillanimous in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese
In the sense showing cowardice:
| Language | Words |
|---|---|
| French | pusillanime |
| German | feige, kleinmütig |
| Portuguese | pusilânime |
| Spanish | pusilánime |
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 pusillanimous come from?
Derived from Latin pusillanimis (“faint-hearted, timid”) + -ous.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).