unofficial
/ʌn.əˈfɪʃ.əl/adjective
unofficial is spelled U-N-O-F-F-I-C-I-A-L. The wrong spelling people search most is unoffical: about 70 Bing searches a month in the United States (September 2025 to August 2026), about 1 in 13 of all searches for the word. Unofficial is an adjective meaning “Not officially established”.
How many letters and syllables are in unofficial?
| Letters | 10: U-N-O-F-F-I-C-I-A-L |
|---|---|
| Syllables | 4 (from its American pronunciation) |
| In writing | 4.6 times per million words; the 11,870th most frequent word form |
| Wrong spellings searched | 1; the most searched, unoffical, about 70 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 unofficial?
Unofficial is spelled U-N-O-F-F-I-C-I-A-L. One wrong spelling is searched or written often enough to measure; together they are about 1 in 13 of the searches for unofficial 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 unofficial?
Unofficial appears 4.6 times per million words in written English, the 11,870th 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 unofficial?
- /ʌn.əˈfɪʃ.əl/
Unofficial has 4 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: LL-Q1860_(eng)-Sapaa-unofficial.wav, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).
Forms of unofficial
- more unofficial comparative
- most unofficial superlative
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
What does unofficial mean?
The meanings the English Wiktionary records, quoted as written there (source below).
adjective
- 1
Not officially established.
the unofficial results of the ballot
- 2
Implicitly true but withheld and/or contradicted by authority.
The unofficial reason for invading the nation, however, was to control their resources.
- 3
Not acting with official authority.
an unofficial adviser
- 4
Not listed in a national pharmacopeia etc.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
Unofficial in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese
In the sense not official:
| Language | Words |
|---|---|
| French | officieux, inofficiel |
| German | inoffiziell |
| Portuguese | extraoficial |
| Spanish | extraoficial, oficioso |
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 unofficial come from?
From un- + official.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).