son
/sʌn/noun, verb
son is spelled S-O-N: 3 letters and one syllable. It appears 191 times per million words in written English, the 531st most frequent word form (wordfreq, 2021 data). People search “son vs sun” about 110 times a month (Google, United States). As a noun, son means “One's male offspring” (English Wiktionary, September 2026). The plural of son is sons.
How many letters and syllables are in son?
| Letters | 3: S-O-N |
|---|---|
| Syllables | 1 (from its American pronunciation) |
| In writing | 191 times per million words; the 531st most frequent word form |
| Wrong spellings searched | none measured in search |
| Pairs people search | |
| Sounds like | |
| Same letters |
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); rhymes and same-letter words are computed by PlainSpell from its own word list.
How common is son?
Son appears 191 times per million words in written English, the 531st 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 son?
- /sʌn/
- /sʊn/
As a noun (“Son cubano, a genre of music and dance blending Spanish and…”): /sɒn/.
Son 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-son.ogg, En-us-son.ogg, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).
Words people confuse with son
Word pairs people search, with the monthly searches for “a vs b” (G: Google, B: Bing, United States).
Sounds like: sun (Wiktionary's homophone list; some hold only in some accents).
Also written: sone.
Sources: Google and Bing searches (September 2025 to August 2026, through DataForSEO); English Wiktionary (homophones, alternative spellings).
What rhymes with son?
No other word on PlainSpell ends in the same sounds as son.
Spelled with the same letters in another order: nos.
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 son
- sons plural, present, singular, he/she/it
- sonning participle, present
- sonned participle, past
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
What does son mean?
The meanings the English Wiktionary records, quoted as written there (source below).
noun
- 1
One's male offspring.
Before the birth of the man's child, he said: "I want a son, not a daughter."
- 2
A male adopted person in relation to his adoptive parents.
- 3
A male person who has such a close relationship with an older or otherwise more authoritative person that he can be regarded as a son of the other person.
- 4
A male person considered to have been significantly shaped by social conflict.
He was a son of the mafia system.
- 5
A person regarded as the product of some place.
- 6
A familiar address to a male person from an older or otherwise more authoritative person.
- 7
UKcolloquialAn informal address to a friend or person of equal authority.
- 8
The current version of a file, derived from the preceding father file.
- 9
Son cubano, a genre of music and dance blending Spanish and African elements that originated in Cuba during the late 19th century.
verb
- 1
To produce (i.e. bear, father, beget) a son.
- 2
To address (someone) as "son".
noun
- 1
Initialism of supraoptic nucleus.
phrase
- 1
Initialism of socked on the nose.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
Son in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese
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 son come from?
From Middle English sonn, sone, sun, sune, from Old English sunu (“son”), from Proto-West Germanic *sunu, from Proto-Germanic *sunuz (“son”), from Proto-Indo-European *suHnús (“son”), from Proto-Indo-European *sewH- (“to bear; give birth”).
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).