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PlainSpell

tray

/tɹeɪ/noun, verb

tray is spelled T-R-A-Y: 4 letters and one syllable. It appears 5.6 times per million words in written English, the 10,358th most frequent word form (wordfreq, 2021 data, counting Tray, the name). People search “tray vs trey” about 210 times a month (Google, United States). As a noun, tray means “A small, typically rectangular or round, flat, and rigid object upon which things are carried” (English Wiktionary, September 2026). The plural of tray is trays.

How many letters and syllables are in tray?

Letters4: T-R-A-Y
Syllables1 (from its American pronunciation)
In writing5.6 times per million words; the 10,358th most frequent word form
Wrong spellings searchednone measured in search
Pairs people search
Sounds like
Same letters

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 common is tray?

Tray appears 5.6 times per million words in written English, the 10,358th most frequent word form in the list. The list counts every capitalisation together, so this includes Tray, the name.

Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).

How do you pronounce tray?

  • /tɹeɪ/

Tray has one syllable (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-tray.ogg, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).

Words people confuse with tray

Word pairs people search, with the monthly searches for “a vs b” (G: Google, B: Bing, United States).

tray vs trey210 G

Sounds like: trey (Wiktionary's homophone list; some hold only in some accents).

Also written: trey.

Sources: Google and Bing searches (September 2025 to August 2026, through DataForSEO); English Wiktionary (homophones, alternative spellings).

What rhymes with tray?

No other word on PlainSpell ends in the same sounds as tray.

Spelled with the same letters in another order: arty.

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 tray

  • trays plural, present, singular, he/she/it
  • traying participle, present
  • trayed participle, past

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

What does tray mean?

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

noun

  1. 1

    A small, typically rectangular or round, flat, and rigid object upon which things are carried.

    I carefully arranged the dishes on the tray and brought it upstairs.

  2. 2

    The items on a full tray.

    Before long they had consumed a whole tray of shrimp cocktails and sent for another.

  3. 3

    A component of a device into which an item is placed for use in the device's operations.

    The CD tray will not open.

  4. 4

    informalA notification area used for icons and alerts.

  5. 5

    A type of retail or wholesale packaging for CPUs where the processors are sold in bulk and/or with minimal packaging.

  6. 6

    AustraliaThe platform of a truck that supports the load to be hauled.

  7. 7

    A gay trans person, particularly a man (a man who is both transgender and gay)

  8. 8

    obsoletetrouble; annoyance; anger

  9. 9

    Alternative form of trey (“third branch of deer's antler”).

verb

  1. 1

    to place (items) on a tray

    Be sure to tray eggs with the large end up.

  2. 2

    to slide down a snow-covered hill on a tray from a cafeteria.

    Traying has provided collegiate fun and the occasional fatality for decades.

  3. 3

    obsoleteto grieve; to annoy

  4. 4

    obsoleteto betray

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

Tray in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese

LanguageWords
Frenchplateau, cabaret (object on which things are carried)
GermanTablett (object on which things are carried), Tablettladung (items on a full tray), Schublade, Fach (component of a device), Leiste (notification area in a computer's graphical…)
Portuguesebandeja, tabuleiro (object on which things are carried), barra (notification area in a computer's graphical…)
Spanishbandeja, charola, trey, palangana (object on which things are carried)

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 tray come from?

From Middle English trey, from Old English trēġ, trīġ (“wooden board, tray”), from Proto-West Germanic *trauwi, from Proto-Germanic *trawją (“wooden vessel”), from Proto-Indo-European *drewo-, *dóru (“tree; wood”). Cognate with Old Norse treyja (“carrier”), Old Swedish trø (“wooden grain measure”), Low German Treechel (“dough trough”), Ancient Greek δροίτη (droítē, “tub, vat”), Sanskrit द्रोण (droṇa, “trough”). Related to trough and tree.

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

What to look up after tray