quandary
quan·da·ry/ˈkwɒn.də.ɹi/noun
quandary is spelled Q-U-A-N-D-A-R-Y, 3 syllables: quan·da·ry. The wrong spelling people search most is quandry: about 900 Bing searches a month in the United States (September 2025 to August 2026), about 4 in 10 of all searches for the word. Quandary is a noun meaning “A state of not knowing what to decide; a state of difficulty or perplexity; a state of uncertainty…”. The plural of quandary is quandaries.
How many letters and syllables are in quandary?
| Letters | 8: Q-U-A-N-D-A-R-Y |
|---|---|
| Syllables | 3: quan·da·ry |
| In writing | about once in every 3 million words; the 47,073rd most frequent word form |
| Wrong spellings searched | 2; the most searched, quandry, about 900 Bing searches a month (all of them) |
Sources: letters and syllables from the English Wiktionary's hyphenation or pronunciation; 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 quandary?
Quandary is spelled Q-U-A-N-D-A-R-Y. 2 wrong spellings are searched or written often enough to measure; together they are about 4 in 10 of the searches for quandary 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 quandary?
Quandary appears about once in every 3 million words in written English, the 47,073rd 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 quandary?
- UK /ˈkwɒn.də.ɹi/
- UK /ˈkwɒn.dɹi/
- UK /kwɒnˈdɛə.ɹɪ/
Quandary has 3 syllables, split quan·da·ry in writing.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Recordings: En-au-quandary.ogg, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).
Forms of quandary
- quandaries plural
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
What does quandary mean?
The meanings the English Wiktionary records, quoted as written there (source below).
noun
- 1
A state of not knowing what to decide; a state of difficulty or perplexity; a state of uncertainty, hesitation or puzzlement; a dilemma, a difficult decision or choice.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
Quandary in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese
In the sense a state of not knowing what to decide:
| Language | Words |
|---|---|
| French | dilemme, embarras, perplexité, incertitude |
| German | Dilemma, verfahrene Situation, Zwickmühle, Verlegenheit |
| Portuguese | dilema, indecisão, impasse |
| Spanish | disyuntiva |
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 quandary come from?
16th century. Origin unknown; perhaps a dialectal corruption (simulating a word of Latin origin with suffix -ary) of wandreth (“evil, plight, peril, adversity, difficulty”), from Middle English wandreth, from Old Norse vandræði (“difficulty, trouble”), from vándr (“difficult, requiring pains and care”).
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).