soot
/suːt/noun, verb
soot is spelled S-O-O-T: 4 letters and one syllable. It appears 1.0 times per million words in written English, the 28,214th most frequent word form (wordfreq, 2021 data). As a noun, soot means “Fine black or dull brown particles of amorphous carbon and tar, produced by the incomplete combustion of coal, oil etc” (English Wiktionary, September 2026). The plural of soot is soots.
How many letters and syllables are in soot?
| Letters | 4: S-O-O-T |
|---|---|
| Syllables | 1 (from its American pronunciation) |
| In writing | 1.0 times per million words; the 28,214th most frequent word form |
| Wrong spellings searched | none measured in search |
| 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); rhymes and same-letter words are computed by PlainSpell from its own word list.
How common is soot?
Soot appears 1.0 times per million words in written English, the 28,214th 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 soot?
- /suːt/
- /sʊt/
- /sʉt/
Soot 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-us-soot.ogg, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).
What rhymes with soot?
No other word on PlainSpell ends in the same sounds as soot.
Spelled with the same letters in another order: soto.
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 soot
- soots plural, present, singular, he/she/it
- sooting participle, present
- sooted participle, past
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
What does soot mean?
The meanings the English Wiktionary records, quoted as written there (source below).
noun
- 1
Fine black or dull brown particles of amorphous carbon and tar, produced by the incomplete combustion of coal, oil etc.
verb
- 1
To cover or dress with soot.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
Soot in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese
In the sense fine black or dull brown particles:
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 soot come from?
Inherited from Middle English soot, soote, sote, sot, from Old English sōt, from Proto-Germanic *sōtą (“soot”), from Proto-Indo-European *sed- (“to sit”). Cognate with dated Dutch zoet (“soot”), German Low German Soot (“soot”), Danish sod (“soot”), Norwegian Bokmål, Norwegian Nynorsk, and Swedish sot (“soot”), Icelandic sót (“soot”). Compare similar ō-grade formation the same Proto-Indo-European root in Old Irish suide (“soot”) and Balto-Slavic: Lithuanian súodžiai (“soot”), and Proto-Slavic *saďa (“soot”) (Russian са́жа (sáža), Polish and Slovak sadza, Bulgarian са́жда (sážda)).
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).