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us

/ʌs/pronoun, determiner, noun

us is spelled U-S: 2 letters and one syllable. It appears 1,096 times per million words in written English, the 96th most frequent word form (wordfreq, 2021 data). As a pronoun, us means “Me and at least one other person, excluding the person(s) being addressed. (exclusive us.)” (English Wiktionary, September 2026).

How many letters and syllables are in us?

Letters2: U-S
Syllables1 (from its American pronunciation)
In writing1,096 times per million words; the 96th most frequent word form
Wrong spellings searchednone measured in search
Pairs people search

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 common is us?

Us appears 1,096 times per million words in written English, the 96th 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 us?

  • /əs/
  • /ʌs/
  • /əz/

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

Words people confuse with us

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

is vs us0 B

Also written: is, u's, uz.

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

Forms of us

  • uz
  • is
  • iz

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

What does us mean?

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

pronoun

  1. 1

    Me and at least one other person, excluding the person(s) being addressed. (exclusive us.)

    Don't treat us like idiots.

  2. 2

    Me and at least one other person, including the person(s) being addressed. (inclusive us.)

    Let's ask him if he'll give us a lift.

  3. 3

    We, used in the same circumstances where “me” would be used instead of “I”, e.g. for the pronoun in isolation or as the complement of the copula

    Who's there? – Us. (or) – It's us.

  4. 4

    Any entity that the speaker is a part of or identifies with, such as place of employment or education, nation, region, language, etc.

    It's not true that the rest of Europe hates us.

  5. 5

    People in general.

    Grief ages us.

  6. 6

    colloquialThe person(s) being addressed.

    Come on! Wakey wakey! Let's get us up and out of bed, please.

  7. 7

    colloquialUsed to imply connection between the speaker's experiences or activities and a group of listeners.

    Hey guys, in this video I'll show you how I make my upside-down sponge cake. First let's get us a few ingredients that we'll need ...

  8. 8

    CommonwealthcolloquialMe.

    Give us a look at your paper.

determiner

  1. 1

    Designates the speaker(s)/writer(s) as constituting or belonging to the stated category of people (objective case).

    It's not good enough for us teachers.

  2. 2

    proscribedDesignates the speaker(s)/writer(s) as constituting or belonging to the stated category of people (subjective case).

  3. 3

    Our.

    We'll have to throw us food out.

noun

  1. 1

    informalThe relationship between the speaker and some other unspecified person.

    There is no us.

  2. 2

    rareAlternative form of u's.

noun

as US
  1. 1

    Initialism of unconditioned stimulus.

  2. 2

    Initialism of ultrasonography or ultrasound.

adjective

as US
  1. 1

    Abbreviation of undersize.

  2. 2

    Abbreviation of unserviceable.

    The radio is US.

noun

as Us
  1. 1

    plural of U (a form of U)

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

Us in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese

LanguageWords
Frenchnous, à nous (objective case of "we")
Germanuns (objective case of "we"), mich, mir (colloquial: me)
Portuguesenos (objective case of "we")
Spanishnos, nosotros, nosotras (objective case of "we")

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 us come from?

From Middle English us, from Old English ūs (“us”, dative personal pronoun), from Proto-West Germanic *uns, from Proto-Germanic *uns (“us”), from Proto-Indo-European *n̥swé, alteration of *n̥smé (“us”). The compensatory lengthening was lost in Middle English due to the word being unstressed when used. Cognate with Saterland Frisian uus (“us”), West Frisian us, ús (“us”), Low German uns, us (“us”), Dutch ons (“us”), German uns (“us”), Danish os (“us”), Latin nōs (“we, us”).

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

What to look up after us