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PlainSpell

spear

/spɪɹ/noun, verb, adjective

spear is spelled S-P-E-A-R: 5 letters and one syllable. It appears 5.0 times per million words in written English, the 11,198th most frequent word form (wordfreq, 2021 data). People search “spare vs spear” about 30 times a month (Google, United States). As a noun, spear means “A long stick with a sharp tip used as a weapon for throwing or thrusting, or anything used to make a thrusting motion” (English Wiktionary, September 2026). The plural of spear is spears.

How many letters and syllables are in spear?

Letters5: S-P-E-A-R
Syllables1 (from its American pronunciation)
In writing5.0 times per million words; the 11,198th most frequent word form
Wrong spellings searchednone measured in search
Pairs people search
Rhymes with
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 spear?

Spear appears 5.0 times per million words in written English, the 11,198th 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 spear?

  • UK /spɪə̯(ɹ)/
  • US /spɪɹ/

Spear 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-spear.ogg, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).

Words people confuse with spear

Word pairs people search, with the monthly searches for “a vs b” (G: Google, B: Bing, United States).

spare vs spear30 G
spear vs speer0 B

Sources: Google and Bing searches (September 2025 to August 2026, through DataForSEO); English Wiktionary (homophones, alternative spellings).

What rhymes with spear?

The 12 most written words on PlainSpell end in the same sounds as spear from its last stressed vowel (/ɪɹ/):

Spelled with the same letters in another order: spare, parse, asper, presa, prase.

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 spear

  • spears plural, present, singular, he/she/it
  • spearing participle, present
  • speared participle, past

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).

What does spear mean?

The meanings the English Wiktionary records, quoted as written there (source below).

noun

  1. 1

    A long stick with a sharp tip used as a weapon for throwing or thrusting, or anything used to make a thrusting motion.

  2. 2

    A soldier armed with such a weapon; a spearman.

  3. 3

    A lance with barbed prongs, used by fishermen to retrieve fish.

  4. 4

    An illegal maneuver using the end of a hockey stick to strike into another hockey player.

  5. 5

    In professional wrestling, a running tackle in which the wrestler's shoulder is driven into the opponent's midsection.

  6. 6

    A shoot, as of grass; a spire.

  7. 7

    The feather of a horse.

  8. 8

    The rod to which the bucket, or plunger, of a pump is attached; a pump rod.

  9. 9

    The sprout of a plant, stalk

  10. 10

    obsoleteA church spire.

verb

  1. 1

    To pierce with a spear.

  2. 2

    To penetrate or strike with, or as if with, any long narrow object; to make a thrusting motion that catches an object on the tip of a long device.

  3. 3

    To tackle an opponent by ramming into them with one's helmet.

  4. 4

    To shoot into a long stem, as some plants do.

  5. 5

    obsoleteTo ignore as a social snub.

adjective

  1. 1

    Male.

    a spear counterpart

  2. 2

    Pertaining to male family members.

    the spear side of the family

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).

Spear in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese

LanguageWords
Frenchlance (long stick with a sharp tip), harpon (sharp tool used by fishermen to retrieve fish)
GermanSpeer (long stick with a sharp tip)
Portugueselança (long stick with a sharp tip), arpão (sharp tool used by fishermen to retrieve fish)
Spanishlanza, venablo, azagaya (long stick with a sharp tip), arpón (sharp tool used by fishermen to retrieve fish)

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 spear come from?

From Middle English spere, sperre, spear, from Old English spere, from Proto-West Germanic *speru, from Proto-Germanic *speru, from Proto-Indo-European *sperH-.

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).

What to look up after spear