tofu
/ˈtoʊfu/noun
tofu is spelled T-O-F-U: 4 letters and 2 syllables. It appears 1.9 times per million words in written English, the 19,825th most frequent word form (wordfreq, 2021 data). As a noun, tofu means “A protein-rich food made from curdled soy milk” (English Wiktionary, September 2026). The plural of tofu is tofus.
How many letters and syllables are in tofu?
| Letters | 4: T-O-F-U |
|---|---|
| Syllables | 2 (from its American pronunciation) |
| In writing | 1.9 times per million words; the 19,825th most frequent word form |
| Wrong spellings searched | none measured in search |
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).
How common is tofu?
Tofu appears 1.9 times per million words in written English, the 19,825th 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 tofu?
- US /ˈtoʊfu/
- UK /ˈtəʊfuː/
- /t̪o.fu/
Tofu 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-tofu.wav, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).
Forms of tofu
- tofus plural
- tōfu
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
What does tofu mean?
The meanings the English Wiktionary records, quoted as written there (source below).
noun
- 1
A protein-rich food made from curdled soy milk.
- 2
A box or rectangle, empty or with a question mark or hexadecimal code inside, displayed by some systems in place of a character not supported by available fonts. (such as _□ or )
noun
- 1
Alternative form of tofu.
noun
- 1
Initialism of trust on first use, a type of network software security model where a client requests an identification code from a remote host when establishing the first connection.
- 2
Initialism of top of funnel.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
Tofu in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese
In the sense protein-rich food made from curdled soy milk:
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 tofu come from?
Borrowed from Japanese 豆(とう)腐(ふ) (tōfu), from Middle Chinese 豆腐 (duwᴴ bju^X, “curdled bean”). Doublet of dubu and doufu.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).