ways
/weɪz/noun
ways is spelled W-A-Y-S: 4 letters and one syllable. It appears 115 times per million words in written English, the 932nd most frequent word form (wordfreq, 2021 data). As a noun, ways means “A distance” (English Wiktionary, September 2026).
How many letters and syllables are in ways?
| Letters | 4: W-A-Y-S |
|---|---|
| Syllables | 1 (from its American pronunciation) |
| In writing | 115 times per million words; the 932nd most frequent word form |
| Wrong spellings searched | none measured in search |
| 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 ways?
Ways appears 115 times per million words in written English, the 932nd 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 ways?
- /weɪz/
Ways 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-ways.ogg, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).
What rhymes with ways?
No other word on PlainSpell ends in the same sounds as ways.
Spelled with the same letters in another order: sway, yaws.
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).
What does ways mean?
The meanings the English Wiktionary records, quoted as written there (source below).
noun
- 1
USinformalA distance.
a little ways out
- 2
plural of way
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
Where does ways come from?
From way + -s (adverbial suffix).
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).