soffit
/ˈsɑ.fɪt/noun
soffit is a noun meaning “The visible underside of an arch, balcony, beam, cornice, staircase, vault or any other architectural element” (English Wiktionary, September 2026). It is spelled S-O-F-F-I-T and has 2 syllables, and it appears about once in every 11 million words in written English (wordfreq, 2021 data). The plural of soffit is soffits.
What does soffit mean?
noun
- 1
The visible underside of an arch, balcony, beam, cornice, staircase, vault or any other architectural element.
- 2
The top point of the inside open section of a pipe or box conduit.
The elevation of the pipe soffit is 10.4 meters above mean sea level.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
How do you pronounce soffit?
- UK /ˈsɒf.ɪt/
- US /ˈsɑ.fɪt/
Soffit 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: En-au-soffit.ogg, En-us-soffit.oga, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).
Forms of soffit
- soffits plural
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
How common is soffit?
Soffit appears about once in every 11 million words in written English, the 101,613th 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).
Soffit in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese
In the sense the visible underside of an arch, balcony, beam, cornice, staircase, vault or an:
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 soffit come from?
From French soffite, from Italian soffitto, from Vulgar Latin *suffīctus, perfect passive participle of Latin suffīgō (“to fasten or fix onto”).
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).