scathing

/ˈskeɪðɪŋ/adjective, verb

scathing is spelled S-C-A-T-H-I-N-G: 8 letters and 2 syllables. It appears about once in every 1 million words in written English, the 30,017th most frequent word form (wordfreq, 2021 data). As an adjective, scathing means “Harshly or bitterly critical; vitriolic” (English Wiktionary, September 2026).

How many letters and syllables are in scathing?

Letters	8: S-C-A-T-H-I-N-G
Syllables	2 (from its American pronunciation)
In writing	about once in every 1 million words; the 30,017th most frequent word form
Wrong spellings searched	none measured in search

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).

How common is scathing?

Scathing appears about once in every 1 million words in written English, the 30,017th most frequent word form in the list.

scathing0.0010.010.11101001,00010,000

rarerper million words of written Englishmore common

Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).

How do you pronounce scathing?

/ˈskeɪðɪŋ/

Scathing 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: LL-Q1860_(eng)-AnotherFriendlyHuman-scathing.wav, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).

Forms of scathing

more scathing comparative
most scathing superlative

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).

What does scathing mean?

The meanings the English Wiktionary records, quoted as written there (source below).

adjective

1
Harshly or bitterly critical; vitriolic.
2
Harmful or painful; acerbic.

verb

1
present participle and gerund of scathe (a form of scathe)