vigilance
/ˈvɪd͡ʒɪlɪns/noun
vigilance is spelled V-I-G-I-L-A-N-C-E. The wrong spelling people search most is vigilence: about 110 Bing searches a month in the United States (September 2025 to August 2026), about 1 in 15 of all searches for the word. Vigilance is a noun meaning “Alert watchfulness”. The plural of vigilance is vigilances.
How many letters and syllables are in vigilance?
| Letters | 9: V-I-G-I-L-A-N-C-E |
|---|---|
| Syllables | 3 (from its American pronunciation) |
| In writing | 1.4 times per million words; the 23,536th most frequent word form |
| Wrong spellings searched | 1; the most searched, vigilence, about 110 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 vigilance?
Vigilance is spelled V-I-G-I-L-A-N-C-E. One wrong spelling is searched or written often enough to measure; together they are about 1 in 15 of the searches for vigilance 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 vigilance?
Vigilance appears 1.4 times per million words in written English, the 23,536th 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 vigilance?
- /ˈvɪd͡ʒɪlɪns/
- /ˈvɪd͡ʒɪləns/
Vigilance 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: LL-Q1860_(eng)-Vininn126-vigilance.wav, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).
Forms of vigilance
- vigilances plural
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
What does vigilance mean?
The meanings the English Wiktionary records, quoted as written there (source below).
noun
- 1
Alert watchfulness.
- 2
Close and continuous attention.
- 3
obsoleteA guard; a person set to watch.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
Vigilance in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese
In the sense Alert watchfulness:
| Language | Words |
|---|---|
| French | vigilance |
| German | Wachsamkeit |
| Portuguese | vigilância |
| Spanish | vigilancia, alerta |
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 vigilance come from?
Borrowed from Middle French vigilance, from Latin vigilantia.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).