somebody
/ˈsʌmbˌɒdi/pronoun, noun
somebody is spelled S-O-M-E-B-O-D-Y. The wrong spelling people search most is sombody: about 30 Bing searches a month in the United States (September 2025 to August 2026), about 1 in 25 of all searches for the word. Somebody is a pronoun meaning “Some unspecified person”.
How many letters and syllables are in somebody?
| Letters | 8: S-O-M-E-B-O-D-Y |
|---|---|
| Syllables | 3 (from its American pronunciation) |
| In writing | 63 times per million words; the 1,668th most frequent word form |
| Wrong spellings searched | 1; the most searched, sombody, about 30 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 somebody?
Somebody is spelled S-O-M-E-B-O-D-Y. One wrong spelling is searched or written often enough to measure; together they are about 1 in 25 of the searches for somebody 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 somebody?
Somebody appears 63 times per million words in written English, the 1,668th 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 somebody?
- UK /ˈsʌmbˌɒdi/
- UK /ˈsʌmˌbədi/
- /ˈsʌmbˌʌdi/
Somebody has 3 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: LL-Q1860_(eng)-Vealhurl-somebody.wav, En-us-somebody.ogg, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).
Words people confuse with somebody
Also written: some-body (one word or two).
Sources: English Wiktionary (homophones, alternative spellings).
Forms of somebody
- somebuddy
- sombuddy
- sombudy
- sumbody
- sumbuddy
- sby
- sb
- somebodies plural
- somebodys plural
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
What does somebody mean?
The meanings the English Wiktionary records, quoted as written there (source below).
pronoun
- 1
Some unspecified person.
Somebody has to clean this mess up.
- 2
Synonym of someone; an important person.
He could have been somebody!
noun
- 1
Any person.
- 2
A recognised or important person, a celebrity.
I'm tired of being a nobody – I want to be a somebody.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
How do you abbreviate somebody?
Wiktionary records 6 abbreviations of somebody: s/b, sb, sb., sbd., sby, smb.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
Somebody in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese
In the sense some unspecified person:
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 somebody come from?
From Middle English sum body, equivalent to some + body.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).