tetragrammaton
noun
tetragrammaton is a noun meaning “Alternative letter-case form of Tetragrammaton” (English Wiktionary, September 2026). It is spelled T-E-T-R-A-G-R-A-M-M-A-T-O-N, and it appears about once in every 15 million words in written English (wordfreq, 2021 data). The plural of tetragrammaton is tetragrammata or tetragrammatons.
What does tetragrammaton mean?
noun
- 1
Alternative letter-case form of Tetragrammaton.
noun
- 1
The word in four Hebrew letters יהוה (in transliteration as YHWH or JHVH) used as the ineffable name of God in the Hebrew Bible, variously rendered as Yahweh or Jehovah.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
Forms of tetragrammaton
- tetragrammata plural
- tetragrammatons plural
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
How common is tetragrammaton?
Tetragrammaton appears about once in every 15 million words in written English, the 117,098th 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).
Tetragrammaton in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese
In the sense the four Hebrew letters י־ה־ו־ה, used as the ineffable name of God:
| Language | Words |
|---|---|
| French | tétragramme |
| German | Tetragramm, Tetragrammaton |
| Portuguese | tetragrama |
| Spanish | tetragrámaton |
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 tetragrammaton come from?
From Ancient Greek τετραγράμματον (tetragrámmaton, “four-letter word”), neuter gender of τετραγράμματος (tetragrámmatos, “having four letters”), formed from a combining form of τέτταρες (téttares, “four”) and γράμμα (grámma, “letter”).
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).