thru
/θɹu/preposition
thru is spelled T-H-R-U: 4 letters and one syllable. It appears 6.8 times per million words in written English, the 9,165th most frequent word form (wordfreq, 2021 data). People search “through vs thru” about 12,100 times a month (Google, United States). As a preposition, thru means “Nonstandard spelling of through” (English Wiktionary, September 2026).
How many letters and syllables are in thru?
| Letters | 4: T-H-R-U |
|---|---|
| Syllables | 1 (from its American pronunciation) |
| In writing | 6.8 times per million words; the 9,165th most frequent word form |
| Wrong spellings searched | none measured in search |
| Pairs people search | |
| Sounds like | |
| 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); 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 common is thru?
Thru appears 6.8 times per million words in written English, the 9,165th 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 thru?
- UK /θɹuː/
- US /θɹu/
Thru 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-through.ogg, LL-Q1860_(eng)-Wodencafe-thru.wav, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).
Words people confuse with thru
Word pairs people search, with the monthly searches for “a vs b” (G: Google, B: Bing, United States).
Sounds like: through (Wiktionary's homophone list; some hold only in some accents).
Also written: through.
Sources: Google and Bing searches (September 2025 to August 2026, through DataForSEO); English Wiktionary (homophones, alternative spellings).
What rhymes with thru?
The 12 most written words on PlainSpell end in the same sounds as thru from its last stressed vowel (/u/):
Spelled with the same letters in another order: hurt, ruth.
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 thru mean?
The meanings the English Wiktionary records, quoted as written there (source below).
preposition
- 1
CanadaUSinformalnonstandardNonstandard spelling of through.
- 2
CanadaUSAbbreviation of through.
- 3
UKrareEye dialect spelling of through.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
Where does thru come from?
Modern use originated in American English as a phonetic and simplified spelling of through around 1839. The spelling had previously been one of several used in Middle English.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).