recessive
/ɹɪˈsɛsɪv/adjective, noun
recessive is spelled R-E-C-E-S-S-I-V-E. The wrong spelling people search most is resessive: about 10 Bing searches a month in the United States (September 2025 to August 2026), about 1 in 39 of all searches for the word. Recessive is an adjective meaning “Going back; receding”.
How many letters and syllables are in recessive?
| Letters | 9: R-E-C-E-S-S-I-V-E |
|---|---|
| Syllables | 3 (from its American pronunciation) |
| In writing | about once in every 1 million words; the 32,393rd most frequent word form |
| Wrong spellings searched | 1; the most searched, resessive, about 10 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 recessive?
Recessive is spelled R-E-C-E-S-S-I-V-E. One wrong spelling is searched or written often enough to measure; together they are about 1 in 39 of the searches for recessive 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 recessive?
Recessive appears about once in every 1 million words in written English, the 32,393rd 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 recessive?
- /ɹɪˈsɛsɪv/
Recessive 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: LL-Q1860_(eng)-Vealhurl-recessive.wav, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).
Forms of recessive
- more recessive comparative
- most recessive superlative
- recessives plural
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
What does recessive mean?
The meanings the English Wiktionary records, quoted as written there (source below).
adjective
- 1
Going back; receding.
- 2
Able to be masked by a dominant allele or trait.
- 3
Not dominant; whose effect is masked by stronger effects.
noun
- 1
A gene that is recessive.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
Recessive in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese
In the sense in genetics:
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 recessive come from?
From Latin recēdō + -ive, or directly from New Latin recessīvus.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).