Skip to main content
PlainSpell

transparent

UK /tɹænsˈpæɹənt/adjective, noun

transparent is spelled T-R-A-N-S-P-A-R-E-N-T. The wrong spelling people search most is transparant: about 60 Bing searches a month in the United States (September 2025 to August 2026), about 1 in 88 of all searches for the word. Transparent is an adjective meaning “Of a graphical image or animated GIF, having parts that allow the background to show through”.

How many letters and syllables are in transparent?

Letters11: T-R-A-N-S-P-A-R-E-N-T
Syllables3 (from its American pronunciation)
In writing10 times per million words; the 7,009th most frequent word form
Wrong spellings searched1; the most searched, transparant, about 60 Bing searches a month (all of them)

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).

How do you spell transparent?

Transparent is spelled T-R-A-N-S-P-A-R-E-N-T. One wrong spelling is searched or written often enough to measure; together they are about 1 in 89 of the searches for transparent in either form.

transparentthe right spelling5,270 searches a month
transparanta in place of e60 searches a month

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 transparent?

Transparent appears 10 times per million words in written English, the 7,009th 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 transparent?

  • UK /tɹænsˈpæɹənt/
  • UK /tɹænz-/
  • British /tɹansˈpaɹənt/

Transparent 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-transparent.ogg, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).

Forms of transparent

  • more transparent comparative
  • most transparent superlative
  • transparents plural

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).

What does transparent mean?

The meanings the English Wiktionary records, quoted as written there (source below).

adjective

  1. 1

    See-through, clear; having the property that light passes through it almost undisturbed, such that one can see through it clearly.

    The waters of the lake were transparent until the factory dumped waste there.

  2. 2

    Of a graphical image or animated GIF, having parts that allow the background to show through.

  3. 3

    Open, public; having the property that theories and practices are publicly visible, thereby reducing the chance of corruption.

  4. 4

    Obvious; readily apparent; easy to see or understand.

    His reasons for the decision were transparent.

  5. 5

    Having the property of transparency, i.e. sufficiently accurate that the compressed result is perceptually indistinguishable from the uncompressed input.

  6. 6

    Not noticeable because it happens automatically or in the background; invisible.

noun

  1. 1

    Something that is transparent.

  2. 2

    nonstandardA transgender or transsexual parent.

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).

Transparent in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese

LanguageWords
Frenchtransparent (see-through, clear)
Germandurchsichtig, transparent (see-through, clear), erkennbar (obvious)
Portuguesetransparente (see-through, clear), óbvio, claro (obvious)
Spanishtransparente (see-through, clear)

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 transparent come from?

Borrowed from Medieval Latin trānspārēns, trānspārēntis (“transparent”), present participle of transpareō, from Latin trans + pareō. Displaced native Old English þurhsīene.

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).

What to look up after transparent