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spleen

/spliːn/noun, verb

spleen is spelled S-P-L-E-E-N: 6 letters and one syllable. It appears 1.4 times per million words in written English, the 24,170th most frequent word form (wordfreq, 2021 data). As a noun, spleen means “In vertebrates, including humans, a ductless vascular gland, located in the upper left abdomen near the stomach, which destroys old red blood cells…” (English Wiktionary, September 2026). The plural of spleen is spleens.

How many letters and syllables are in spleen?

Letters6: S-P-L-E-E-N
Syllables1 (from its American pronunciation)
In writing1.4 times per million words; the 24,170th most frequent word form
Wrong spellings searchednone measured in search

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).

How common is spleen?

Spleen appears 1.4 times per million words in written English, the 24,170th 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 spleen?

  • /spliːn/

Spleen 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: LL-Q1860_(eng)-AcpoKrane-spleen.wav, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).

Forms of spleen

  • spleens plural, present, singular, he/she/it
  • spleening participle, present
  • spleened participle, past

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

What does spleen mean?

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

noun

  1. 1

    In vertebrates, including humans, a ductless vascular gland, located in the upper left abdomen near the stomach, which destroys old red blood cells, removes debris from the bloodstream, acts as a reservoir of blood, and produces lymphocytes.

  2. 2

    archaicA bad mood; spitefulness. Compare gall.

  3. 3

    obsoleterareA sudden motion or action; a fit; a freak; a whim.

  4. 4

    obsoleteMelancholy; hypochondriacal affections.

  5. 5

    A fit of immoderate laughter or merriment.

verb

  1. 1

    obsoleteTo dislike.

  2. 2

    To annoy or irritate.

  3. 3

    To complain; to rail; to vent one's spleen.

  4. 4

    To remove the spleen, or, by extension, to gore.

  5. 5

    To excise or remove.

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

Spleen in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese

LanguageWords
Frenchrate (organ), spleen (mood)
GermanMilz (organ), Groll, Trübsinn (mood)
Portuguesebaço (organ), esplim (mood)
Spanishbazo (organ), esplín (mood)

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 spleen come from?

From Middle English splene, splen, from Anglo-Norman espleen and Old French esplein, esplen, from Latin splēn (“milt”), from Ancient Greek σπλήν (splḗn, “the spleen”). Doublet of lien. Partially displaced the native English term milt.

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

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