sea
/siː/noun
sea is spelled S-E-A: 3 letters and one syllable. It appears 115 times per million words in written English, the 932nd most frequent word form (wordfreq, 2021 data, counting Sea, the name). As a noun, sea means “A large body of salt water” (English Wiktionary, September 2026). The plural of sea is seas.
How many letters and syllables are in sea?
| Letters | 3: S-E-A |
|---|---|
| Syllables | 1 (from its American pronunciation) |
| In writing | 115 times per million words; the 932nd most frequent word form |
| Wrong spellings searched | none measured in search |
| Pairs people search | |
| Sounds like | |
| Same letters |
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); rhymes and same-letter words are computed by PlainSpell from its own word list.
How common is sea?
Sea appears 115 times per million words in written English, the 932nd most frequent word form in the list. The list counts every capitalisation together, so this includes Sea, the name.
Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).
How do you pronounce sea?
- /siː/
- /seɪ/
Sea has one syllable (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-sea.ogg, LL-Q1860_(eng)-Naomi_Persephone_Amethyst_(NaomiAmethyst)-sea.wav, LL-Q1860_(eng)-Back_ache-sea.wav, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).
Words people confuse with sea
Word pairs people search, with the monthly searches for “a vs b” (G: Google, B: Bing, United States).
Sounds like: cee, see (Wiktionary's homophone list; some hold only in some accents).
Sources: Google and Bing searches (September 2025 to August 2026, through DataForSEO); English Wiktionary (homophones, alternative spellings).
What rhymes with sea?
No other word on PlainSpell ends in the same sounds as sea.
Spelled with the same letters in another order: aes, ase.
Computed by PlainSpell from the pronunciations in the English Wiktionary (dump of September 2, 2026): a rhyme shares every sound from the last stressed vowel to the end; ordered by written frequency (wordfreq 3.1).
Forms of sea
- seas plural
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
What does sea mean?
The meanings the English Wiktionary records, quoted as written there (source below).
noun
- 1
A large body of salt water.
- 2
The ocean; the continuous body of salt water covering a majority of the Earth's surface.
- 3
A body of salt water smaller than an ocean, generally forming part of, or connecting with, an ocean or a larger sea.
The Mediterranean Sea, the Caribbean Sea, the Sea of Crete, etc.
- 4
A lake, especially if large or if salty or brackish.
The Caspian Sea, the Sea of Galilee, the Salton Sea, etc.
- 5
A single wave; billow.
- 6
The swell of the sea, especially when high or rough.
- 7
Living or used in or on the sea; of, near, or like the sea.
Seaman, sea gauge, sea monster, sea horse, sea level, seaworthy, seaport, seaboard, etc.
- 8
Anything resembling the vastness or turbulence of the sea in mass, size or quantity.
noun
- 1
Initialism of Strategic Environmental Assessment.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
Sea in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese
In the sense body of water:
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.