rabbit
/ˈɹæbɪt/noun, verb
rabbit is spelled R-A-B-B-I-T. The wrong spelling people search most is rabit: about 520 Bing searches a month in the United States (September 2025 to August 2026), about 1 in 34 of all searches for the word. Rabbit is a noun meaning “A mammal of most genera of the family Leporidae, with long ears, long hind legs and a short, fluffy tail.…”. The plural of rabbit is rabbits.
How many letters and syllables are in rabbit?
| Letters | 6: R-A-B-B-I-T |
|---|---|
| Syllables | 2 (from its American pronunciation) |
| In writing | 11 times per million words; the 6,565th most frequent word form |
| Wrong spellings searched | 1; the most searched, rabit, about 520 Bing searches a month (all of them) |
| Sounds like |
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 rabbit?
Rabbit is spelled R-A-B-B-I-T. One wrong spelling is searched or written often enough to measure; together they are about 1 in 34 of the searches for rabbit 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 rabbit?
Rabbit appears 11 times per million words in written English, the 6,565th 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 rabbit?
- UK /ˈɹæbɪt/
- British /ˈɹabɪt/
- /ˈɹæbət/
Rabbit 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-uk-a_rabbit.ogg, En-us-rabbit.ogg, En-au-rabbit.ogg, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).
Words people confuse with rabbit
Sounds like: rabbet (Wiktionary's homophone list; some hold only in some accents).
Sources: English Wiktionary (homophones, alternative spellings).
Forms of rabbit
- rabbits plural, present, singular, he/she/it
- rabbiting participle, present
- rabbitting participle, present
- rabbited participle, past
- rabbitted participle, past
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
What does rabbit mean?
The meanings the English Wiktionary records, quoted as written there (source below).
noun
- 1
A mammal of most genera of the family Leporidae, with long ears, long hind legs and a short, fluffy tail. (Those of the larger kind are instead called hares)
The pioneers survived by eating the small game they could get: rabbits, squirrels and occasionally a raccoon.
- 2
The meat from this animal.
She was cooking rabbit stew for dinner.
- 3
The fur of a rabbit typically used to imitate another animal's fur.
- 4
A runner in a distance race whose goal is mainly to set the pace, either to tire a specific rival so that a teammate can win or to help another break a record; a pacesetter.
- 5
A very poor batsman, selected as a bowler or wicket-keeper.
- 6
A batsman who is frequently dismissed by the same bowler (said to be that player's rabbit).
Glenn McGrath dismissed Michael Atherton a record 19 times; hence Atherton is McGrath's rabbit.
- 7
A large element at the beginning of a list of items to be bubble sorted, and thus tending to be quickly swapped into its correct position. Compare turtle.
- 8
Rarebit; Welsh rabbit or a similar dish: melted cheese served atop toast.
verb
- 1
To hunt rabbits.
- 2
USTo flee.
The informant seemed skittish, as if he was about to rabbit.
- 3
UKTo talk incessantly and in a childish manner; to babble annoyingly.
Stop your infernal rabbiting! Use proper words or nobody will listen to you!
- 4
Confound; damn; drat.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
Rabbit in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese
| Language | Words |
|---|---|
| French | lapin |
| German | Kaninchen, Karnickel, Schlappohr |
| Portuguese | coelho |
| Spanish | conejo, conejil, conejuno, ñeco , liebre |
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 rabbit come from?
Inherited from Middle English rabet, rabette, from Anglo-Latin rabettus, from dialectal Old French rabotte, probably a diminutive of Middle Dutch or West Flemish robbe (“rabbit, seal”), of uncertain origin; possibly some imitative verb, maybe robben, rubben (“to rub”) is used here to allude to a characteristic of the animal. See rub. Related forms include Middle French rabouillet (“baby rabbit”) and in French rabot (“plane”)), coming via Walloon Old French (reflected nowadays as Walloon robète (“rabbit”)), from Middle Dutch robbe ("rabbit; seal"; whence Modern Dutch rob (“rabbit", also "seal”)
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).