tetra
/ˈtɛ.tɹə/noun
tetra is a noun meaning “Any of numerous species of small freshwater fish of the South American family Characidae and West African family Alestidae, popular in home aquariums” (English Wiktionary, September 2026). It is spelled T-E-T-R-A and has 2 syllables, and it appears about once in every 2 million words in written English (wordfreq, 2021 data). The plural of tetra is tetras.
What does tetra mean?
noun
- 1
Any of numerous species of small freshwater fish of the South American family Characidae and West African family Alestidae, popular in home aquariums.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
How do you pronounce tetra?
- /ˈtɛ.tɹə/
Tetra has 2 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: LL-Q1860_(eng)-Vealhurl-tetra-.wav, LL-Q1860_(eng)-Vealhurl-tetra.wav, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).
Forms of tetra
- tetr-
- tetras plural
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
How common is tetra?
Tetra appears about once in every 2 million words in written English, the 40,703rd 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).
Tetra in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese
In the sense forming compound words having the sense of ‘four’:
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 tetra come from?
From translingual Tetragonopterus, an obsolete genus that included these fish, ultimately from Ancient Greek τετράγωνος (tetrágōnos, “square, quadrilateral”) + πτερόν (pterón, “wing, fin”).
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).