volleyball
/ˈvɒlibɔ(ː)l/noun
volleyball is spelled V-O-L-L-E-Y-B-A-L-L. The wrong spelling people search most is vollyball: about 1,430 Bing searches a month in the United States (September 2025 to August 2026), about 1 in 38 of all searches for the word. Volleyball is a noun meaning “A game played on a rectangular court between two teams of two to six players which involves striking a ball…”. The plural of volleyball is volleyballs.
How many letters and syllables are in volleyball?
| Letters | 10: V-O-L-L-E-Y-B-A-L-L |
|---|---|
| Syllables | 3 (from its American pronunciation) |
| In writing | 7.1 times per million words; the 8,918th most frequent word form |
| Wrong spellings searched | 2; the most searched, vollyball, about 1,430 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 volleyball?
Volleyball is spelled V-O-L-L-E-Y-B-A-L-L. 2 wrong spellings are searched or written often enough to measure; together they are about 1 in 33 of the searches for volleyball 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 volleyball?
Volleyball appears 7.1 times per million words in written English, the 8,918th 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 volleyball?
- /ˈvɒlibɔ(ː)l/
Volleyball 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: En-us-volleyball.ogg, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).
Words people confuse with volleyball
Also written: volley-ball (one word or two).
Sources: English Wiktionary (homophones, alternative spellings).
Forms of volleyball
- volleyballs plural
- volley-ball
- bolleyball
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
What does volleyball mean?
The meanings the English Wiktionary records, quoted as written there (source below).
noun
- 1
A game played on a rectangular court between two teams of two to six players which involves striking a ball back and forth over a net.
- 2
The inflated ball used in such a game.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
How do you abbreviate volleyball?
Wiktionary records one abbreviation of volleyball: VB.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
Volleyball in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese
| Language | Words |
|---|---|
| French | volley-ball , balle de volley |
| German | Volleyball |
| Portuguese | voleibol, vólei, vôlei , bola de vôlei/vólei |
| Spanish | voleibol, balonvolea, vóleibol, vóley , balón voleibolista, pelota de vóleibol |
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 volleyball come from?
From volley + ball. In 1895, in Holyoke, Massachusetts, William G. Morgan created a new game called Mintonette, a name derived from the game of badminton.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).