southern
South·ern/ˈsʌðɚn/adjective, noun
southern is spelled S-O-U-T-H-E-R-N, 2 syllables: South·ern. The wrong spelling people search most is sourthern: about 30 Bing searches a month in the United States (September 2025 to August 2026), about 1 in 476 of all searches for the word. Southern is an adjective meaning “Of, facing, situated in, or related to the south”.
How many letters and syllables are in southern?
| Letters | 8: S-O-U-T-H-E-R-N |
|---|---|
| Syllables | 2: South·ern |
| In writing | 69 times per million words; the 1,528th most frequent word form |
| Wrong spellings searched | 1; the most searched, sourthern, about 30 Bing searches a month (all of them) |
Sources: letters and syllables from the English Wiktionary's hyphenation or pronunciation; 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 southern?
Southern is spelled S-O-U-T-H-E-R-N. One wrong spelling is searched or written often enough to measure; together they are about 1 in 467 of the searches for southern 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 southern?
Southern appears 69 times per million words in written English, the 1,528th 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 southern?
- UK /ˈsʌðən/
- US /ˈsʌðɚn/
- /ˈsaʊðɚn/
Southern has 2 syllables, split South·ern in writing.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Recordings: En-us-southern.ogg, En-ca-southern.ogg, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).
Forms of southern
- more southern comparative
- most southern superlative
- southernmost superlative
- southerns plural
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
What does southern mean?
The meanings the English Wiktionary records, quoted as written there (source below).
adjective
- 1
Of, facing, situated in, or related to the south.
- 2
Of or pertaining to a southern region, especially Southern Europe or the southern United States.
The southern climate.
- 3
Of a wind: blowing from the south; southerly.
noun
- 1
Synonym of southerner.
adjective
- 1
From or pertaining to the southern part of any region.
- 2
USFrom or pertaining to the South, the south-eastern states of the United States, southern portions of some other states (e.g., Southern California), or to the inhabitants or culture of that region.
But although Southern cooking makes use of a cornucopia of vegetables, it also typically includes generous portions of meat and fried chicken. Even vegetable dishes and breads are often cooked with animal fat: Greens are fried in bacon grea
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
How do you abbreviate southern?
Wiktionary records 3 abbreviations of southern: So., s., sthn..
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
Southern in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese
| Language | Words |
|---|---|
| French | austral, méridional, sud , sudiste |
| German | südlich, Süd- , südländisch |
| Portuguese | do sul, meridional, austral , do sul/Sul, sulista |
| Spanish | del sur, sureño, meridional, austral |
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 southern come from?
From Middle English southerne, sothern, sutherne, from Old English sūþerne (“southern, southerly, coming from the south; of southern make”), from Proto-Germanic *sunþrōnijaz (“southern”), from Proto-Indo-European *sh₂un-, *sh₂wen-, r/n-stem alternation of *sóh₂wl̥ (“sun”). Cognate with Scots southron, sudron (“southern”), Old Frisian sūthern, sūdern (“southern”), Middle Low German sūdern (“southern”), Middle High German sundern (“southern”), Icelandic suðrænn (“southern, tropical”). By surface analysis, south + -ern.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).