television
/ˈtɛlɪˌvɪʒən/noun, verb
television is spelled T-E-L-E-V-I-S-I-O-N. The wrong spelling people search most is televsion: about 260 Bing searches a month in the United States (September 2025 to August 2026), about 1 in 39 of all searches for the word. Television is a noun meaning “An electronic communication medium that allows the transmission of real-time visual images, and often sound”. The plural of television is televisions.
How many letters and syllables are in television?
| Letters | 10: T-E-L-E-V-I-S-I-O-N |
|---|---|
| Syllables | 4 (from its American pronunciation) |
| In writing | 62 times per million words; the 1,696th most frequent word form |
| Wrong spellings searched | 1; the most searched, televsion, about 260 Bing searches a month (all of them) |
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).
How do you spell television?
Television is spelled T-E-L-E-V-I-S-I-O-N. One wrong spelling is searched or written often enough to measure; together they are about 1 in 39 of the searches for television 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 television?
Television appears 62 times per million words in written English, the 1,696th 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 television?
- /ˈtɛlɪˌvɪʒən/
- /ˈtɛləˌvɪʒən/
- /ˌtɛlɪˈvɪʒən/
Television has 4 syllables (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-uk-television.ogg, En-us-television.ogg, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).
Forms of television
- televisions plural, present, singular, he/she/it
- televisioning participle, present
- televisioned participle, past
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
What does television mean?
The meanings the English Wiktionary records, quoted as written there (source below).
noun
- 1
An electronic communication medium that allows the transmission of real-time visual images, and often sound.
She watched television for over five hours last night.
- 2
An electronic home entertainment device equipped with a screen and a speaker for receiving television signals and displaying them in audio-visual form.
I have an old television in the study.
- 3
Collectively, the programs broadcast via the medium of television.
fifty-seven channels and nothing on television
- 4
datedVision at a distance.
verb
- 1
informalTo watch television.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
How do you abbreviate television?
Wiktionary records 2 abbreviations of television: TV, telvsn.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
Television in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese
| Language | Words |
|---|---|
| French | télévision, télé , téléviseur, télévision (fam.), poste de télévision , regarder la télévision |
| German | Fernsehen, Television , Fernseher, Fernsehgerät, Fernsehapparat, Glotze |
| Portuguese | televisão , televisor, aparelho televisor |
| Spanish | televisión, tele , ver la televisión |
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 television come from?
From tele- + vision; first attested in 1900, probably influenced by French télévision from Constantin Perskyi's 1900 paper that was unpublished but presented at a Paris conference.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).