tears
/tɪɹz/noun, interjection, verb
tears is spelled T-E-A-R-S: 5 letters and one syllable. It appears 30 times per million words in written English, the 3,161st most frequent word form (wordfreq, 2021 data). As a noun, tears means “Viscous streaks left on the inside of the glass when certain wines are swirled around before tasting” (English Wiktionary, September 2026).
How many letters and syllables are in tears?
| Letters | 5: T-E-A-R-S |
|---|---|
| Syllables | 1 (from its American pronunciation) |
| In writing | 30 times per million words; the 3,161st most frequent word form |
| Wrong spellings searched | none measured in search |
| Rhymes with | |
| Same letters |
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); rhymes and same-letter words are computed by PlainSpell from its own word list.
How common is tears?
Tears appears 30 times per million words in written English, the 3,161st 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 tears?
- US /tɪɹz/
- UK /tɪəz/
- /tiːɹz/
As a verb: /tɛɹz/, /tɛəz/, /teːɹz/.
Tears 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)-Wodencafe-tears.wav, En-us-tears-noun.ogg, En-us-tears-verb.ogg, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).
What rhymes with tears?
2 words on PlainSpell end in the same sounds as tears from its last stressed vowel (/ɪɹz/):
Spelled with the same letters in another order: rates, stare, taser, aster, sater, teras, setar.
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).
What does tears mean?
The meanings the English Wiktionary records, quoted as written there (source below).
noun
- 1
plural of tear (“liquid from the eyes”)
- 2
Viscous streaks left on the inside of the glass when certain wines are swirled around before tasting.
- 3
plural of tear (“rip”)
verb
- 1
third-person singular simple present indicative of tear
- 2
third-person singular simple present indicative of tear
interjection
- 1
Ellipsis of in tears (“laughing; in disbelief”)
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).