sherlock
Sher·lock/ˈʃɜɹ.lɒk/verb
sherlock is spelled S-H-E-R-L-O-C-K: 8 letters and 2 syllables (Sher·lock). It appears 5.4 times per million words in written English, the 10,680th most frequent word form (wordfreq, 2021 data). As a verb, sherlock means “Alternative letter-case form of Sherlock” (English Wiktionary, September 2026).
How many letters and syllables are in sherlock?
| Letters | 8: S-H-E-R-L-O-C-K |
|---|---|
| Syllables | 2: Sher·lock |
| In writing | 5.4 times per million words; the 10,680th most frequent word form |
| Wrong spellings searched | none measured in search |
Sources: letters and syllables from the English Wiktionary's hyphenation or pronunciation; written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).
How common is sherlock?
Sherlock appears 5.4 times per million words in written English, the 10,680th 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 sherlock?
- /ˈʃɜɹ.lɒk/
Sherlock has 2 syllables, split Sher·lock in writing.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Recordings: En-au-Sherlock.ogg, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).
Forms of sherlock
- sherlocks present, singular, he/she/it
- sherlocking participle, present
- sherlocked participle, past
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
What does sherlock mean?
The meanings the English Wiktionary records, quoted as written there (source below).
verb
- 1
Alternative letter-case form of Sherlock.
verb
- 1
informalTo deduce.
"Anybody could have Sherlocked at a glance," sniffed young Kennilworth, "that it had been packed by a crazy person!"
- 2
informalTo search.
- 3
slangTo obsolete a unique feature in third-party software by introducing a similar or identical feature to the OS or a first-party program/app.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
Where does sherlock come from?
Supposedly from an Old English scir-locc (“bright-lock”). One of a group of surnames originally denoting hair colour, parallel to Blacklock, Harlock (Old English har (“grey”)), Silverlock. In the sense of “a detective”, from Sherlock Holmes. In the computing verb sense, refers to the software Sherlock, which in 2002 came to replicate some of the features of an earlier complementary program called Watson.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).