significance
/sɪɡˈnɪfɪkəns/noun
significance is spelled S-I-G-N-I-F-I-C-A-N-C-E. The wrong spelling people search most is signifigance: about 100 Bing searches a month in the United States (September 2025 to August 2026), about 1 in 16 of all searches for the word. Significance is a noun meaning “The extent to which something matters; importance”. The plural of significance is significances.
How many letters and syllables are in significance?
| Letters | 12: S-I-G-N-I-F-I-C-A-N-C-E |
|---|---|
| Syllables | 4 (from its American pronunciation) |
| In writing | 15 times per million words; the 5,309th most frequent word form |
| Wrong spellings searched | 1; the most searched, signifigance, about 100 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 significance?
Significance is spelled S-I-G-N-I-F-I-C-A-N-C-E. One wrong spelling is searched or written often enough to measure; together they are about 1 in 16 of the searches for significance 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 significance?
Significance appears 15 times per million words in written English, the 5,309th 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 significance?
- US /sɪɡˈnɪfɪkəns/
Significance has 4 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: En-us-significance.ogg, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).
Forms of significance
- significances plural
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
What does significance mean?
The meanings the English Wiktionary records, quoted as written there (source below).
noun
- 1
The extent to which something matters; importance
As a juror your opinion is of great significance for the outcome of the trial.
- 2
Meaning.
the significance of her gesture was unclear
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
Significance in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese
| Language | Words |
|---|---|
| French | importance, signification |
| German | Bedeutung, Signifikanz |
| Portuguese | significância , significado |
| Spanish | significado, significación, calado, importancia, significancia |
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 significance come from?
Inherited from Middle English significaunce, from Middle French significance, from Old French significance, from Latin significantia. Doublet of signifiance.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).