syncytium
/sɪnˈsɪʃiəm/noun
syncytium is a noun meaning “A mass of cytoplasm containing many nuclei; a multinucleate cell resulting from cell fusions of mononuclear cells (for example, the cells that make…” (English Wiktionary, September 2026). It is spelled S-Y-N-C-Y-T-I-U-M, and it appears about once in every 59 million words in written English (wordfreq, 2021 data). The plural of syncytium is syncytia.
What does syncytium mean?
noun
- 1
A mass of cytoplasm containing many nuclei; a multinucleate cell resulting from cell fusions of mononuclear cells (for example, the cells that make up animal skeletal muscle).
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
How do you pronounce syncytium?
- /sɪnˈsɪʃiəm/
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
Forms of syncytium
- syncytia plural
- syncitium
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
How common is syncytium?
Syncytium appears about once in every 59 million words in written English, the 240,237th 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).
Syncytium in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese
In the sense a mass of cytoplasm containing many nuclei:
| Language | Words |
|---|---|
| German | Synzytium |
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 syncytium come from?
From Ancient Greek σύν (sún, “with”) + κύτος (kútos, “vessel, cell”).
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).