style
/staɪl/noun, verb
style is spelled S-T-Y-L-E. The wrong spelling people search most is stlye: about 30 Bing searches a month in the United States (September 2025 to August 2026), about 1 in 200 of all searches for the word. Style is a noun meaning “A sharp stick used for writing on clay tablets or other surfaces; a stylus; (by extension, obsolete) an…”. The plural of style is styles.
How many letters and syllables are in style?
| Letters | 5: S-T-Y-L-E |
|---|---|
| Syllables | 1 (from its American pronunciation) |
| In writing | 129 times per million words; the 810th most frequent word form |
| Wrong spellings searched | 2; the most searched, stlye, about 30 Bing searches a month (all of them) |
| Pairs people search | |
| Sounds like | |
| Rhymes with |
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 do you spell style?
Style is spelled S-T-Y-L-E. 2 wrong spellings are searched or written often enough to measure; together they are about 1 in 121 of the searches for style in either form.
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 style?
Style appears 129 times per million words in written English, the 810th 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 style?
- US /staɪl/
- /staɪ.əl/
Style 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-style.ogg, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).
Words people confuse with style
Word pairs people search, with the monthly searches for “a vs b” (G: Google, B: Bing, United States).
Sounds like: Styal, stile (Wiktionary's homophone list; some hold only in some accents).
Also written: stile.
Sources: Google and Bing searches (September 2025 to August 2026, through DataForSEO); English Wiktionary (homophones, alternative spellings).
What rhymes with style?
11 words on PlainSpell end in the same sounds as style from its last stressed vowel (/aɪl/):
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 style
- styles plural, present, singular, he/she/it
- stile
- stylee
- styling participle, present
- styled participle, past
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
What does style mean?
The meanings the English Wiktionary records, quoted as written there (source below).
noun
- 1
A sharp stick used for writing on clay tablets or other surfaces; a stylus; (by extension, obsolete) an instrument used to write with ink; a pen.
- 2
A tool with a sharp point used in engraving; a burin, a graver, a stylet, a stylus.
- 3
The gnomon or pin of a sundial, the shadow of which indicates the hour.
- 4
The stalk that connects the stigma(s) to the ovary in a pistil of a flower.
- 5
A kind of surgical instrument with a blunt point, used for exploration.
- 6
A small, thin, pointed body part.
- 7
A long, slender, bristle-like process near the anal region.
the anal styles of insects
- 8
A particular manner of expression in writing or speech, especially one regarded as good.
verb
- 1
To design, fashion, make, or arrange in a certain way or form (style).
- 2
To call or give a name or title to.
The pope is styled His or Your Holiness.
- 3
informalTo create for, or give to, someone a style, fashion, or image, particularly one which is regarded as attractive, tasteful, or trendy.
- 4
USinformalTo act in a way which seeks to show that one possesses style.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
Style in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese
| Language | Words |
|---|---|
| French | style , modèle , flow , -style |
| German | Griffel , Stil |
| Portuguese | estilo , estilete , tratamento, forma de tratamento , estilizar , tratar por/de |
| Spanish | estilo , honorífico, título, tratamiento , estilizar |
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 style come from?
The noun is derived from Middle English stile (“writing tool; piece of written work; characteristic mode of expression; demeanour; person's designation or title; stem of a plant; period of time”) (compare semantic development to по́черк (póčerk, “handwriting, style”)), from Old French estile, or from Medieval Latin stylus, both from Latin stilus (“pointed instrument; writing tool; composition; characteristic mode of expression; stem of a plant”), from Proto-Indo-European *(s)teyg- (“to be sharp; to pierce, prick, puncture, stab; to goad”). Doublet of stylus. The verb is derived from the noun.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).