symptom
sym·ptom/ˈsɪm(p)təm/noun
symptom is spelled S-Y-M-P-T-O-M, 2 syllables: sym·ptom. The wrong spelling people search most is sympton: about 70 Bing searches a month in the United States (September 2025 to August 2026), about 1 in 13 of all searches for the word. Symptom is a noun meaning “A perceived change in some function, sensation or appearance of a person that indicates a disease or…”. The plural of symptom is symptoms.
How many letters and syllables are in symptom?
| Letters | 7: S-Y-M-P-T-O-M |
|---|---|
| Syllables | 2: sym·ptom |
| In writing | 4.4 times per million words; the 12,216th most frequent word form |
| Wrong spellings searched | 1; the most searched, sympton, about 70 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 symptom?
Symptom is spelled S-Y-M-P-T-O-M. One wrong spelling is searched or written often enough to measure; together they are about 1 in 13 of the searches for symptom 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 symptom?
Symptom appears 4.4 times per million words in written English, the 12,216th 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 symptom?
- /ˈsɪm(p)təm/
Symptom has 2 syllables, split sym·ptom in writing.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Recordings: LL-Q1860_(eng)-Vealhurl-symptom.wav, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).
Forms of symptom
- symptoms plural
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
What does symptom mean?
The meanings the English Wiktionary records, quoted as written there (source below).
noun
- 1
A perceived change in some function, sensation or appearance of a person that indicates a disease or disorder, such as fever, headache or rash; strictly, a symptom is felt or experienced by the patient, while a sign can be detected by an observer.
The doctor told that his coughing and sneezing was the symptom of standing for too long in the rain.
- 2
A signal; anything that indicates, or is characteristic of, the presence of something else, especially of something undesirable.
Lying, hiding one's true feelings, and having affairs are typical symptoms of a doomed marriage.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
Symptom 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 symptom come from?
From Middle English sinthoma, from Medieval Latin sinthoma, altered by Late Latin symptoma, from Ancient Greek σύμπτωμα (súmptōma, “a happening, accident, symptom of disease”), from stem of συμπίπτω (sumpíptō, “Ι befall”), from συν- (sun-, “together”) + πίπτω (píptō, “to fall”). See also syn-, -oma, -ome.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).