reciprocal
/ɹɪˈsɪpɹək(ə)l/adjective, noun
reciprocal is spelled R-E-C-I-P-R-O-C-A-L. The wrong spelling people search most is reciprical: about 280 Bing searches a month in the United States (September 2025 to August 2026), about 1 in 14 of all searches for the word. Reciprocal is an adjective meaning “Of a feeling, action or such: mutual, uniformly felt or done by each party towards the other or others…”.
How many letters and syllables are in reciprocal?
| Letters | 10: R-E-C-I-P-R-O-C-A-L |
|---|---|
| Syllables | 4 (from its American pronunciation) |
| In writing | 1.7 times per million words; the 21,798th most frequent word form |
| Wrong spellings searched | 1; the most searched, reciprical, about 280 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 reciprocal?
Reciprocal is spelled R-E-C-I-P-R-O-C-A-L. One wrong spelling is searched or written often enough to measure; together they are about 1 in 14 of the searches for reciprocal 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 reciprocal?
Reciprocal appears 1.7 times per million words in written English, the 21,798th 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 reciprocal?
- /ɹɪˈsɪpɹək(ə)l/
Reciprocal has 4 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-reciprocal.ogg, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).
Forms of reciprocal
- reciprocals plural
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
What does reciprocal mean?
The meanings the English Wiktionary records, quoted as written there (source below).
adjective
- 1
Of a feeling, action or such: mutual, uniformly felt or done by each party towards the other or others; two-way.
reciprocal love
- 2
Mutually interchangeable.
- 3
Expressing mutual action, applied to pronouns and verbs; also in a broad sense: reflexive.
- 4
Used to denote different kinds of mutual relation; often with reference to the substitution of reciprocals for given quantities.
noun
- 1
The number obtained by dividing 1 by another given number; the result of exchanging the numerator and the denominator of a fraction.
0.5 is the reciprocal of 2.
- 2
A construction expressing mutual action.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
How do you abbreviate reciprocal?
Wiktionary records one abbreviation of reciprocal: recip..
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
Reciprocal in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese
| Language | Words |
|---|---|
| French | réciproque , inverse |
| German | gegenseitig, reziprok , Kehrwert , entgegengesetzt, umgekehrt |
| Portuguese | recíproco , recíproca |
| Spanish | mutuo, recíproco , al revés |
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 reciprocal come from?
From Latin reciprocus, possibly from a phrase such as reque proque (“back and forth, to and fro”), from re- (“back”), prō (“forwards”) and -que (“and”).
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).