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PlainSpell

substance

sub·stance/ˈsʌbstəns/noun, verb

substance is spelled S-U-B-S-T-A-N-C-E, 2 syllables: sub·stance. The wrong spelling people search most is substace: about 10 Bing searches a month in the United States (September 2025 to August 2026), about 1 in 263 of all searches for the word. Substance is a noun meaning “Physical matter; material”. The plural of substance is substances.

How many letters and syllables are in substance?

Letters9: S-U-B-S-T-A-N-C-E
Syllables2: sub·stance
In writing17 times per million words; the 4,838th most frequent word form
Wrong spellings searched1; the most searched, substace, about 10 Bing searches a month (all of them)

Sources: letters and syllables from the English Wiktionary's hyphenation or pronunciation; 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 substance?

Substance is spelled S-U-B-S-T-A-N-C-E. One wrong spelling is searched or written often enough to measure; together they are about 1 in 266 of the searches for substance in either form.

substancethe right spelling2,650 searches a month
substacea missing n10 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 substance?

Substance appears 17 times per million words in written English, the 4,838th 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 substance?

  • US /ˈsʌbstəns/
  • US [ˈsʌbstənts]

Substance has 2 syllables, split sub·stance in writing.

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Recordings: En-us-substance.ogg, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).

Forms of substance

  • substances plural, present, singular, he/she/it
  • substancing participle, present
  • substanced participle, past

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

What does substance mean?

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

noun

  1. 1

    Physical matter; material.

  2. 2

    A form of matter that has constant chemical composition and characteristic properties.

  3. 3

    The essential part of anything; the most vital part.

  4. 4

    Substantiality; solidity; firmness.

    Some textile fabrics have little substance.

  5. 5

    Material possessions; estate; property; resources.

    a man of substance

  6. 6

    Drugs (illegal narcotics)

    substance abuse

  7. 7

    Ousia, essence; underlying reality or hypostasis in the philosophical sense.

verb

  1. 1

    rareTo give substance to; to make real or substantial.

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

Substance in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese

LanguageWords
Frenchsubstance (physical matter; material – see also matter), fond (essential part), biens (material possessions)
GermanSubstanz, Stoff (physical matter; material – see also matter)
Portuguesesubstância (physical matter; material – see also matter), riqueza (material possessions)
Spanishsustancia, substancia (physical matter; material – see also matter), enjundia, fuste (substantiality; solidity; firmness)

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 substance come from?

Inherited from Middle English substance, from Old French substance, from Latin substantia (“substance, essence”), from substāns, present active participle of substō (“exist”, literally “stand under”), from sub + stō (“stand”). Displaced native Old English andweorc.

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

What to look up after substance