spray
/spɹeɪ/noun, verb
spray is spelled S-P-R-A-Y: 5 letters and one syllable. It appears 15 times per million words in written English, the 5,309th most frequent word form (wordfreq, 2021 data). As a noun, spray means “A fine, gentle, dispersed mist of liquid” (English Wiktionary, September 2026). The plural of spray is sprays.
How many letters and syllables are in spray?
| Letters | 5: S-P-R-A-Y |
|---|---|
| Syllables | 1 (from its American pronunciation) |
| In writing | 15 times per million words; the 5,309th 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 spray?
Spray appears 15 times per million words in written English, the 5,309th 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 spray?
- /spɹeɪ/
Spray 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-spray.ogg, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).
What rhymes with spray?
No other word on PlainSpell ends in the same sounds as spray.
Spelled with the same letters in another order: raspy.
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 spray
- sprays plural, present, singular, he/she/it
- spraying participle, present
- sprayed participle, past
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
What does spray mean?
The meanings the English Wiktionary records, quoted as written there (source below).
noun
- 1
A fine, gentle, dispersed mist of liquid.
The sailor could feel the spray from the waves.
- 2
Something resembling a spray of liquid.
- 3
A pressurized container; an atomizer.
- 4
Any of numerous commercial products, including paints, cosmetics, and insecticides, that are dispensed from containers in this manner.
- 5
A jet of fine medicated vapour, used either as an application to a diseased part or to charge the air of a room with a disinfectant or a deodorizer.
- 6
A side channel or branch of the runner of a flask, made to distribute the metal to all parts of the mold.
- 7
A group of castings made in the same mold and connected by sprues formed in the runner and its branches.
- 8
The allocation and filling of blocks of memory with the same byte sequence, hoping to establish that sequence in a certain predetermined location as part of an exploit.
- 9
A small branch of flowers or berries.
The bridesmaid carried a spray of lily-of-the-valley.
- 10
A collective body of small branches.
The tree has a beautiful spray.
- 11
Branches and twigs collectively; foliage.
- 12
obsoleteAn orchard.
- 13
An ornament or design that resembles a branch.
verb
- 1
To project a liquid in a dispersive manner toward something.
The firemen sprayed the house.
- 2
To project in a dispersive manner.
Spray some ointment on that scratch.
- 3
To project many small items dispersively.
- 4
To urinate in order to mark territory.
- 5
To allocate blocks of memory from (a heap, etc.), and fill them with the same byte sequence, hoping to establish that sequence in a certain predetermined location as part of an exploit.
to spray the heap of a target process
- 6
To pass (a ball), usually laterally across the field and often a long distance.
- 7
To kick (a ball) poorly and in an unintended direction.
- 8
derogatoryslangTo give unwanted advice.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
Spray in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese
| Language | Words |
|---|---|
| French | embrun, gouttelette , rameau, branchette, gerbe , pulvérisateur |
| German | Spray, Sprühnebel , Reisig, Blütenstand , versprühen, zerstäuben |
| Portuguese | borrifo, spray, esprei , raminho , borrifar |
| Spanish | spray, aerosol, difusión, esprey , ramito , rociar |
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 spray come from?
From Middle Dutch sprāien, sprayen, spraeyen (“to spray, sprinkle, spread”), ultimately from Proto-Germanic *sprēwijaną (“to spray, sprinkle”), from Proto-Indo-European *(s)per- (“to sow, scatter”).
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).