shirt
/ʃɜɹt/noun, verb
shirt is spelled S-H-I-R-T: 5 letters and one syllable. It appears 43 times per million words in written English, the 2,339th most frequent word form (wordfreq, 2021 data). As a noun, shirt means “An article of clothing that is worn on the upper part of the body, often with sleeves that cover some or all of the arms” (English Wiktionary, September 2026). The plural of shirt is shirts.
How many letters and syllables are in shirt?
| Letters | 5: S-H-I-R-T |
|---|---|
| Syllables | 1 (from its American pronunciation) |
| In writing | 43 times per million words; the 2,339th most frequent word form |
| Wrong spellings searched | none measured in search |
| Rhymes with |
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); rhymes and same-letter words are computed by PlainSpell from its own word list.
How common is shirt?
Shirt appears 43 times per million words in written English, the 2,339th 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 shirt?
- UK /ʃɜːt/
- US /ʃɜɹt/
Shirt 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-shirt.ogg, En-us-shirt.ogg, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).
What rhymes with shirt?
The 12 most written words on PlainSpell end in the same sounds as shirt from its last stressed vowel (/ɜɹt/):
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 shirt
- shirts plural, present, singular, he/she/it
- shirting participle, present
- shirted participle, past
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
What does shirt mean?
The meanings the English Wiktionary records, quoted as written there (source below).
noun
- 1
An article of clothing that is worn on the upper part of the body, often with sleeves that cover some or all of the arms.
He went to the mall to find a decent shirt for his interview.
- 2
An interior lining in a blast furnace.
- 3
A member of the shirt-wearing team in a shirts and skins game.
verb
- 1
To cover or clothe with a shirt, or as if with a shirt.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
Shirt in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese
In the sense article of clothing:
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 shirt come from?
From Middle English schirt, schirte, schuirte, schyrtte, seorte, shearte, shert, shirt, sseorte, from Old English sċyrte (“a short garment; skirt; kirtle”), from Proto-West Germanic *skurtijā, from Proto-Germanic *skurtijǭ (“a short garment, skirt, apron”), from *skurtaz (“short”), from *skertaną (“to cut off”), from Proto-Indo-European *(s)ker- (“to cut off; to divide”).
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).