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PlainSpell

straight

/stɹeɪt/adjective, adverb, noun, verb

straight is spelled S-T-R-A-I-G-H-T. The wrong spelling people search most is striaght: about 70 Bing searches a month in the United States (September 2025 to August 2026), about 1 in 101 of all searches for the word. Straight is an adjective meaning “Not crooked, curly, or bent; having a constant direction throughout its length”.

How many letters and syllables are in straight?

Letters8: S-T-R-A-I-G-H-T
Syllables1 (from its American pronunciation)
In writing110 times per million words; the 972nd most frequent word form
Wrong spellings searched4; the most searched, striaght, about 70 Bing searches a month (all of them)
Pairs people search
Sounds like

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).

How do you spell straight?

Straight is spelled S-T-R-A-I-G-H-T. 4 wrong spellings are searched or written often enough to measure; together they are about 1 in 45 of the searches for straight in either form.

straightthe right spelling7,020 searches a month
striaghta and i swapped70 searches a month
starightr and a swapped40 searches a month
straghta missing i40 searches a month
stragihti and g swapped10 searches a month

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 straight?

Straight appears 110 times per million words in written English, the 972nd 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 straight?

  • /stɹeɪt/
  • /stɹaɪt/

Straight 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)-Naomi_Persephone_Amethyst_(NaomiAmethyst)-straight.wav, En-us-straight.ogg, En-au-straight.ogg, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).

Words people confuse with straight

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

straight vs strait1,300 G

Sounds like: strait (Wiktionary's homophone list; some hold only in some accents).

Also written: strait.

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

Forms of straight

  • straighter comparative
  • straightest superlative
  • more straight comparative
  • most straight superlative
  • straights plural, present, singular, he/she/it
  • straighting participle, present
  • straighted participle, past

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

What does straight mean?

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

adjective

  1. 1

    Not crooked, curly, or bent; having a constant direction throughout its length.

  2. 2

    Direct, undeviating.

  3. 3

    Perfectly horizontal or vertical; not diagonal or oblique.

    Mr. Coniff: He did not have his hat on straight; that is the one thing, is it?

  4. 4

    Describing the bat as held so as not to incline to either side; on, or near a line running between the two wickets.

  5. 5

    Having all cylinders in a single straight line; in-line.

  6. 6

    Direct in communication; unevasive, straightforward.

  7. 7

    Free from dishonesty; honest, law-abiding.

  8. 8

    Serious rather than comedic.

adverb

  1. 1

    Of a direction relative to the subject, precisely; as if following a direct line.

    The door will be straight ahead of you.

  2. 2

    Directly; without pause, delay or detour.

    On arriving at work, he went straight to his office.

  3. 3

    Continuously; without interruption or pause.

    He claims he can hold his breath for three minutes straight.

  4. 4

    Of speech or information, without prevarication or holding back; directly; straightforwardly; plainly.

noun

  1. 1

    Something that is not crooked or bent such as a part of a road or track.

  2. 2

    Five cards in sequence.

  3. 3

    colloquialA heterosexual.

    My friends call straights "heteros".

  4. 4

    slangA normal person; someone in mainstream society.

  5. 5

    slangA cigarette, particularly one containing tobacco instead of marijuana.

    A straight = a straighter = a straight cut, une cigarette en tabac de Virginie.]

  6. 6

    A chiropractor who relies solely on spinal adjustment, with no other treatments.

  7. 7

    A cat that has straight ears despite belonging to a breed that often has folded ears.

verb

  1. 1

    To straighten.

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

How do you abbreviate straight?

Wiktionary records one abbreviation of straight: str.

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

Straight in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese

LanguageWords
Frenchdroit, rectiligne (not crooked or bent), droit entre les guichets (on, or near a line running between the two…), en ligne (having all cylinders in a single row), comme il faut (direct, truthful, frank), en ordre (as it should be)
Germangerade (not crooked or bent), aufrecht, aufrichtig, offen, ungeschminkt, direkt (direct, truthful, frank)
Portuguesereto (not crooked or bent), em linha (having all cylinders in a single row), direto, honesto (direct, truthful, frank), direito (as it should be), convencional (conventional)
Spanishrecto, liso, cashato, lacio (not crooked or bent), recto entre los wickets (on, or near a line running between the two…), en línea (having all cylinders in a single row)

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 straight come from?

From Middle English streight, streght, streiȝt, the past participle of strecchen (“to stretch”), from Old English streċċan (past participle ġestreaht, ġestreht), from Proto-West Germanic *strakkjan (“to stretch”). Cognate with Scots straicht (“straight”), Dutch gestrekt (“stretched”), German gestreckt (“stretched”), Danish strakt (“stretched”), Faroese and Norn strekti (“stretched”), Icelandic strekkti (“stretched”), Norwegian strekte (“stretched”), Swedish sträckte (“stretched”). Doublet of straught. Equivalent to stretch + -ed.

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

What to look up after straight