town
/ˈtaʊ̯n/noun
town is spelled T-O-W-N. The wrong spelling people search most is twon: about 150 Bing searches a month in the United States (September 2025 to August 2026), about 1 in 50 of all searches for the word. Town is a noun meaning “A settlement; an area with residential districts, shops and amenities, and its own local government…”. The plural of town is towns.
How many letters and syllables are in town?
| Letters | 4: T-O-W-N |
|---|---|
| Syllables | 1 |
| In writing | 174 times per million words; the 576th most frequent word form |
| Wrong spellings searched | 1; the most searched, twon, about 150 Bing searches a month (all of them) |
| Rhymes with | |
| Same letters |
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); 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 town?
Town is spelled T-O-W-N. One wrong spelling is searched or written often enough to measure; together they are about 1 in 49 of the searches for town 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 town?
Town appears 174 times per million words in written English, the 576th 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 town?
- US /ˈtaʊ̯n/
- US [ˈtʰaʊ̯n]
- /ˈtæʊ̯n/
Town has one syllable.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Recordings: En-uk-town.ogg, LL-Q1860_(eng)-Naomi_Persephone_Amethyst_(NaomiAmethyst)-town.wav, En-us-town.ogg, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).
Words people confuse with town
Also written: toon.
Sources: English Wiktionary (homophones, alternative spellings).
What rhymes with town?
8 words on PlainSpell end in the same sounds as town from its last stressed vowel (/aʊn/):
Spelled with the same letters in another order: wont, nowt.
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 town
- towns plural
- tahn
- tawn
- toon
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
What does town mean?
The meanings the English Wiktionary records, quoted as written there (source below).
noun
- 1
A settlement; an area with residential districts, shops and amenities, and its own local government; especially one larger than a village and smaller than a city, historically enclosed by a fence or walls, with total populations ranging from several hundred to more than a hundred thousand (as of the early 21st century)
This town is really dangerous because these youngsters have Beretta handguns.
- 2
Any more urbanized centre than the place of reference.
I'll be in Yonkers, then I'm driving into town to see the Knicks at the Garden tonight.
- 3
UKA rural settlement in which a market was held at least once a week.
- 4
The residents (as opposed to gown: the students, faculty, etc.) of a community which is the site of a university.
- 5
colloquialUsed to refer to a town or similar entity under discussion.
Call me when you get to town.
- 6
A major city, especially one where the speaker is located.
- 7
An interconnected maze of tunnels in which prairie dogs live.
- 8
informalA townhouse.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
Town in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese
In the sense settlement:
| Language | Words |
|---|---|
| French | ville, commune, bourg, villette, villotte |
| German | Stadt, Ort, Städtchen, Gemeinde |
| Portuguese | vila |
| Spanish | ciudad, pueblo, villa |
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 town come from?
Inherited from Middle English toun, from Old English tūn, from Proto-West Germanic *tūn, from Proto-Germanic *tūną, borrowed from Proto-Celtic *dūnom (“stronghold, rampart”), possibly from Proto-Indo-European *duh₂-nós (“lasting, durable”), from *dewh₂- (“to last”) + *-nós.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).