touchwood
touch·wood/ˌtʌt͡ʃˈwʊd/noun
touchwood is spelled T-O-U-C-H-W-O-O-D: 9 letters and 2 syllables (touch·wood). It appears about once in every 18 million words in written English, the 128,787th most frequent word form (wordfreq, 2021 data). As a noun, touchwood means “Decayed wood used as tinder; punk” (English Wiktionary, September 2026).
How many letters and syllables are in touchwood?
| Letters | 9: T-O-U-C-H-W-O-O-D |
|---|---|
| Syllables | 2: touch·wood |
| In writing | about once in every 18 million words; the 128,787th most frequent word form |
| Wrong spellings searched | none measured in search |
Sources: letters and syllables from the English Wiktionary's hyphenation or pronunciation; written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).
How common is touchwood?
Touchwood appears about once in every 18 million words in written English, the 128,787th 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 touchwood?
- /ˌtʌt͡ʃˈwʊd/
Touchwood has 2 syllables, split touch·wood in writing.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Recordings: LL-Q1860_(eng)-NaomiAmethyst-touchwood.wav, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).
What does touchwood mean?
The meanings the English Wiktionary records, quoted as written there (source below).
noun
- 1
Decayed wood used as tinder; punk.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
Where does touchwood come from?
Apparently from touch + wood, but perhaps the first element is derived from torch.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).