than
/ðæn/conjunction, preposition, adverb
than is spelled T-H-A-N. The wrong spelling people search most is thna: about 20 Bing searches a month in the United States (September 2025 to August 2026), about 1 in 103 of all searches for the word. Than is a conjunction meaning “Used in comparisons, to introduce the basis of comparison”.
How many letters and syllables are in than?
| Letters | 4: T-H-A-N |
|---|---|
| Syllables | 1 (from its American pronunciation) |
| In writing | 1,349 times per million words; the 80th most frequent word form |
| Wrong spellings searched | 1; the most searched, thna, about 20 Bing searches a month (all of them) |
| Pairs people search | |
| 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); 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); rhymes and same-letter words are computed by PlainSpell from its own word list.
How do you spell than?
Than is spelled T-H-A-N. One wrong spelling is searched or written often enough to measure; together they are about 1 in 103 of the searches for than 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 than?
Than appears 1,349 times per million words in written English, the 80th 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 than?
- /ðæn/
- /ðɛn/
- /ðən/
Than 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: En-us-than.ogg, En-us-than-unstressed.ogg, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).
Words people confuse with than
Word pairs people search, with the monthly searches for “a vs b” (G: Google, B: Bing, United States).
Also written: then.
Sources: Google and Bing searches (September 2025 to August 2026, through DataForSEO); English Wiktionary (homophones, alternative spellings).
What rhymes with than?
No other word on PlainSpell ends in the same sounds as than.
Spelled with the same letters in another order: hant.
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 than mean?
The meanings the English Wiktionary records, quoted as written there (source below).
conjunction
- 1
Used in comparisons, to introduce the basis of comparison.
The artist worried more than was necessary: there were a lot of people at the exhibition, more than came last year.
- 2
obsoleteBecause; for.
If thou say yes, then puttest thou on Christ (that is, the wisdome of God, the Father) unkunning, unpower, or euil will: for than he could not make his rule so good as an other did his.
preposition
- 1
Introduces a comparison, and is associated with comparatives, and with words such as more, less, and fewer. Typically, it seeks to measure the force of an adjective or similar description between two predicates.
Patients diagnosed more recently are probably surviving an average of longer than two years.
adverb
- 1
At that time; then.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
Than in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese
In the sense Introduces a comparison:
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 than come from?
From Middle English than, thanne (“than; then”), from Old English þanne, a variant of þonne (“then; when; than”), from Proto-West Germanic *þannē, an alteration of *þan (“then; than”), from Proto-Germanic *þan (“then; than”), from earlier *þam, from Proto-Indo-European *tóm, accusative masculine of *só (“that”, demonstrative pronoun).
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).