scurrilous
/ˈskɜɹələs/adjective
scurrilous is spelled S-C-U-R-R-I-L-O-U-S. The wrong spelling people search most is scurillous: about 20 Bing searches a month in the United States (September 2025 to August 2026), about 1 in 28 of all searches for the word. Scurrilous is an adjective meaning “Of a person, given to vulgar verbal abuse; foul-mouthed”.
How many letters and syllables are in scurrilous?
| Letters | 10: S-C-U-R-R-I-L-O-U-S |
|---|---|
| Syllables | 3 (from its American pronunciation) |
| In writing | about once in every 5 million words; the 69,055th most frequent word form |
| Wrong spellings searched | 1; the most searched, scurillous, about 20 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 scurrilous?
Scurrilous is spelled S-C-U-R-R-I-L-O-U-S. One wrong spelling is searched or written often enough to measure; together they are about 1 in 29 of the searches for scurrilous 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 scurrilous?
Scurrilous appears about once in every 5 million words in written English, the 69,055th 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 scurrilous?
- UK /ˈskʌ.ɹə.ləs/
- UK /ˈskʌ.ɹɪ.ləs/
- US /ˈskɜɹələs/
Scurrilous 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-scurrilous.wav, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).
Forms of scurrilous
- more scurrilous comparative
- most scurrilous superlative
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
What does scurrilous mean?
The meanings the English Wiktionary records, quoted as written there (source below).
adjective
- 1
Of a person, given to vulgar verbal abuse; foul-mouthed.
- 2
Coarse, vulgar, or abusive.
- 3
Slanderous.
- 4
Gross, vulgar.
- 5
Unscrupulous, evil.
We have had our address used by scurrilous crooks in the past to gain assets by fraud.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
Scurrilous in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese
In the sense foul-mouthed:
| Language | Words |
|---|---|
| German | ordinär, flegelhaft, pöbelhaft, niederträchtig, gemein, possenreißerisch |
| Portuguese | obsceno |
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 scurrilous come from?
From Latin scurrīlis (“buffoon-like”) + -ous, from scurra (“a buffoon”).
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).