spool
/spuːl/noun, verb
spool is spelled S-P-O-O-L: 5 letters and one syllable. It appears about once in every 1 million words in written English, the 35,320th most frequent word form (wordfreq, 2021 data). As a noun, spool means “A reel; a device around which thread, wire or cable is wound, especially a cylinder or spindle” (English Wiktionary, September 2026). The plural of spool is spools.
How many letters and syllables are in spool?
| Letters | 5: S-P-O-O-L |
|---|---|
| Syllables | 1 (from its American pronunciation) |
| In writing | about once in every 1 million words; the 35,320th 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 spool?
Spool appears about once in every 1 million words in written English, the 35,320th 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 spool?
- /spuːl/
- /spʉl/
Spool 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-spool.ogg, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).
What rhymes with spool?
No other word on PlainSpell ends in the same sounds as spool.
Spelled with the same letters in another order: sloop.
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 spool
- spools plural, present, singular, he/she/it
- spooling participle, present
- spooled participle, past
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
What does spool mean?
The meanings the English Wiktionary records, quoted as written there (source below).
noun
- 1
A reel; a device around which thread, wire or cable is wound, especially a cylinder or spindle.
- 2
One of the rotating assemblies of a gas turbine engine, composed of one or more turbine stages, a shaft, and one or more compressor or fan stages.
The high-pressure spool rotates faster than the intermediate- and low-pressure spools, as the high-pressure turbine is driven by superheated combustion gases straight out of the burners, while the high-pressure compressor has to spin very f
- 3
A temporary storage area for electronic mail, etc.
- 4
A splinter caught in the skin.
- 5
A small swimming pool that can be used also as a spa.
verb
- 1
To wind on a spool or spools.
- 2
To send files to a device or a program (a spooler or a daemon that puts them in a queue for processing at a later time).
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
Spool 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 spool come from?
From Middle English spole (possibly via Old Northern French spole, espole), from Middle Dutch spoele, from Old Dutch *spōla, *spuola, from Proto-Germanic *spōlǭ (“spool”), from Proto-Indo-European *(s)pel- (“to cleave, split”).
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).