tobacco
/təˈbækoʊ/noun, verb
tobacco is spelled T-O-B-A-C-C-O. The wrong spelling people search most is tabacco: about 890 Bing searches a month in the United States (September 2025 to August 2026), about 1 in 10 of all searches for the word. Tobacco is a noun meaning “Any plant of the genus Nicotiana”. The plural of tobacco is tobaccos or tobaccoes.
How many letters and syllables are in tobacco?
| Letters | 7: T-O-B-A-C-C-O |
|---|---|
| Syllables | 3 (from its American pronunciation) |
| In writing | 15 times per million words; the 5,206th most frequent word form |
| Wrong spellings searched | 2; the most searched, tabacco, about 890 Bing searches a month (all of them) |
| Rhymes with |
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 tobacco?
Tobacco is spelled T-O-B-A-C-C-O. 2 wrong spellings are searched or written often enough to measure; together they are about 1 in 10 of the searches for tobacco 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 tobacco?
Tobacco appears 15 times per million words in written English, the 5,206th 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 tobacco?
- UK /təˈbækəʊ/
- British /təˈbakəw/
- US /təˈbækoʊ/
Tobacco has 3 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-us-tobacco.ogg, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).
What rhymes with tobacco?
One word on PlainSpell end in the same sounds as tobacco from its last stressed vowel (/ækoʊ/):
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).
Forms of tobacco
- tobaccos plural, present, singular, he/she/it
- tobaccoes plural
- tobaccoing participle, present
- tobaccoed participle, past
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
What does tobacco mean?
The meanings the English Wiktionary records, quoted as written there (source below).
noun
- 1
Any plant of the genus Nicotiana.
- 2
Leaves of Nicotiana tabacum and some other species cultivated and harvested to make cigarettes, cigars, snuff, for smoking in pipes or for chewing.
- 3
A variety of tobacco.
Tobaccos from the Connecticut Valley were used for wrapping cigars.
verb
- 1
To indulge in tobacco; to smoke.
- 2
To treat with tobacco.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
How do you abbreviate tobacco?
Wiktionary records one abbreviation of tobacco: TAD.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
Tobacco in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese
In the sense any plant of the genus Nicotiana:
| Language | Words |
|---|---|
| French | tabac |
| German | Tabak, Tabakpflanze |
| Portuguese | tabaco |
| Spanish | tabaco |
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 tobacco come from?
Attested since 1588, borrowed from Spanish tabaco. The Spanish word could be from Arabic طُبَّاق (ṭubbāq, “Dittrichia viscosa”) or from a Caribbean language such as Kari'na or Taíno or multiple of them, from a word meaning "roll of tobacco leaves" or "a pipe for smoking tobacco," such as tabago (“tube for inhaling smoke or powdered intoxicating plants”).
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).