veto
/ˈvi.toʊ/noun, verb
veto is spelled V-E-T-O: 4 letters and 2 syllables. It appears 4.5 times per million words in written English, the 12,045th most frequent word form (wordfreq, 2021 data). As a noun, veto means “A political right to disapprove of (and thereby stop) the process of a decision, a law etc” (English Wiktionary, September 2026). The plural of veto is vetoes or vetos.
How many letters and syllables are in veto?
| Letters | 4: V-E-T-O |
|---|---|
| Syllables | 2 (from its American pronunciation) |
| In writing | 4.5 times per million words; the 12,045th most frequent word form |
| Wrong spellings searched | none measured in search |
| Rhymes with | |
| 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); rhymes and same-letter words are computed by PlainSpell from its own word list.
How common is veto?
Veto appears 4.5 times per million words in written English, the 12,045th 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 veto?
- UK /ˈviːtəʊ/
- US /ˈvi.toʊ/
- US [ˈviɾoʊ]
Veto has 2 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)-Vealhurl-veto.wav, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).
What rhymes with veto?
10 words on PlainSpell end in the same sounds as veto from its last stressed vowel (/itoʊ/):
Spelled with the same letters in another order: vote.
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 veto
- vetoes plural, present, singular, he/she/it
- vetos plural
- vetoing participle, present
- vetoed participle, past
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
What does veto mean?
The meanings the English Wiktionary records, quoted as written there (source below).
noun
- 1
A political right to disapprove of (and thereby stop) the process of a decision, a law etc.
- 2
An invocation of that right.
- 3
An authoritative prohibition or negative; a forbidding; an interdiction.
- 4
A technique or mechanism for discarding what would otherwise constitute a false positive in a scientific experiment.
An outer detector (OD) region will act as both a passive shield for low energy backgrounds and an active veto for cosmic ray muons.
verb
- 1
To use a veto against.
The president vetoed the bill.
- 2
To countermand.
Mom and Dad vetoed our menu preferences for the holiday meal.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
Veto in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese
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 veto come from?
From Latin vetō (“to forbid”).
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).