significant
/sɪɡˈnɪf.ə.kənt/adjective, noun
significant is spelled S-I-G-N-I-F-I-C-A-N-T. The wrong spelling people search most is signifigant: about 140 Bing searches a month in the United States (September 2025 to August 2026), about 1 in 27 of all searches for the word. Significant is an adjective meaning “Signifying something; carrying meaning”.
How many letters and syllables are in significant?
| Letters | 11: S-I-G-N-I-F-I-C-A-N-T |
|---|---|
| Syllables | 4 (from its American pronunciation) |
| In writing | 95 times per million words; the 1,125th most frequent word form |
| Wrong spellings searched | 5; the most searched, signifigant, about 140 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 significant?
Significant is spelled S-I-G-N-I-F-I-C-A-N-T. 5 wrong spellings are searched or written often enough to measure; together they are about 1 in 17 of the searches for significant 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 significant?
Significant appears 95 times per million words in written English, the 1,125th 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 significant?
- UK /sɪɡˈnɪf.ɪ.kənt/
- US /sɪɡˈnɪf.ə.kənt/
- US /sɪɡˈnɪf.ə.ɡənt/
Significant 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-significant.ogg, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).
Forms of significant
- more significant comparative
- most significant superlative
- significants plural
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
What does significant mean?
The meanings the English Wiktionary records, quoted as written there (source below).
adjective
- 1
Signifying something; carrying meaning.
a significant word or sound
- 2
Having a noticeable or major effect.
That was a significant step in the right direction.
- 3
Reasonably large in number or amount.
- 4
Having a covert or hidden meaning.
- 5
Having a low probability of occurring by chance (for example, having high correlation and thus likely to be related).
- 6
Of a digit or figure, see significant figure.
noun
- 1
That which has significance; a sign; a token; a symbol.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
Significant in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese
| Language | Words |
|---|---|
| Spanish | significativo , importante, significante, considerable |
| French | significatif |
| German | signifikant, bedeutend |
| Portuguese | significativo |
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 significant come from?
From Latin significans, present participle of significare, from signum (“sign”) + ficare (“do, make”), variant of facere.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).