seismic
/ˈsaɪzmɪk/adjective
seismic is an adjective meaning “Related to, or caused by an earthquake or other vibration of the Earth” (English Wiktionary, September 2026). It is spelled S-E-I-S-M-I-C and has 2 syllables, and it appears 3.5 times per million words in written English (wordfreq, 2021 data).
What does seismic mean?
adjective
- 1
Related to, or caused by an earthquake or other vibration of the Earth.
seismic activity
- 2
Subject to earthquakes.
a seismic area
- 3
Of very large or widespread effect.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
How do you pronounce seismic?
- /ˈsaɪzmɪk/
- /ˈsaɪsmɪk/
- /ˈsismɪk/
Seismic 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)-Vealhurl-seismic.wav, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).
How common is seismic?
Seismic appears 3.5 times per million words in written English, the 14,106th 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).
Seismic in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese
In the sense related to, or caused by an earthquake or other vibration of the Earth:
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 seismic come from?
Based on Ancient Greek σεισμός (seismós, “shaking, earthquake”) + -ic, equivalent to seismo- + -ic.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).