tomato
/təˈmeɪ.toʊ/noun, adjective, verb
tomato is spelled T-O-M-A-T-O. The wrong spelling people search most is tomatoe: about 1,970 Bing searches a month in the United States (September 2025 to August 2026), about 1 in 10 of all searches for the word. Tomato is a noun meaning “A widely cultivated plant, Solanum lycopersicum, having edible fruit”. The plural of tomato is tomatoes.
How many letters and syllables are in tomato?
| Letters | 6: T-O-M-A-T-O |
|---|---|
| Syllables | 3 (from its American pronunciation) |
| In writing | 7.1 times per million words; the 8,918th most frequent word form |
| Wrong spellings searched | 1; the most searched, tomatoe, about 1,970 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 tomato?
Tomato is spelled T-O-M-A-T-O. One wrong spelling is searched or written often enough to measure; together they are about 1 in 10 of the searches for tomato 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 tomato?
Tomato appears 7.1 times per million words in written English, the 8,918th 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 tomato?
- UK /təˈmɑː.təʊ/
- US /təˈmeɪ.toʊ/
- Canada [tʰəˈmeɪɾo]
Tomato 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-uk-tomato.ogg, En-au-tomato.ogg, En-us-tomato.ogg, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).
What rhymes with tomato?
One word on PlainSpell end in the same sounds as tomato from its last stressed vowel (/eɪtoʊ/):
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 tomato
- tomatoes plural
- tomater
- 'mater informal
- more tomato comparative
- most tomato superlative
- tomatos present, singular, he/she/it
- tomatoing participle, present
- tomatoed participle, past
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
What does tomato mean?
The meanings the English Wiktionary records, quoted as written there (source below).
noun
- 1
A widely cultivated plant, Solanum lycopersicum, having edible fruit.
- 2
The savory fruit of this plant, most often red when ripe, treated as a vegetable in horticulture and cooking.
He was chopping a tomato to put in the salad.
- 3
A shade of red, the colour typical of a ripe tomato.
- 4
slangAn attractive woman.
- 5
slangA stupid act or person.
adjective
- 1
Of a shade of red, the colour of a ripe tomato.
verb
- 1
rareTo pelt with tomatoes.
- 2
rareTo add tomatoes to (a dish).
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
Tomato in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese
| Language | Words |
|---|---|
| French | tomate, tomatier |
| German | Tomate, Tomatenpflanze , Paradeiser |
| Portuguese | tomateiro, tomate |
| Spanish | tomate, tomatera , jitomate |
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 tomato come from?
Variant of earlier tomate, from Spanish tomate, from Classical Nahuatl tomatl, from Proto-Nahuan *toma-tl. Compare tomatillo.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).