Skip to main content
PlainSpell

wealth

/wɛlθ/noun

wealth is spelled W-E-A-L-T-H: 6 letters and one syllable. It appears 32 times per million words in written English, the 2,941st most frequent word form (wordfreq, 2021 data). As a noun, wealth means “Riches; a great amount of valuable assets or material possessions” (English Wiktionary, September 2026). The plural of wealth is wealths.

How many letters and syllables are in wealth?

Letters6: W-E-A-L-T-H
Syllables1 (from its American pronunciation)
In writing32 times per million words; the 2,941st most frequent word form
Wrong spellings searchednone measured in 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).

How common is wealth?

Wealth appears 32 times per million words in written English, the 2,941st 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 wealth?

  • /wɛlθ/
  • [wɛl̪θ]

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

Forms of wealth

  • wealths plural

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

What does wealth mean?

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

noun

  1. 1

    Riches; a great amount of valuable assets or material possessions.

    Money talks, but true wealth whispers.

  2. 2

    A great amount; an abundance or plenty.

    She brings a wealth of knowledge to the project.

  3. 3

    obsoleteProsperity; well-being; happiness.

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

Wealth in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese

LanguageWords
Frenchrichesse (riches; valuable material possessions), profusion, abondance (great amount; an abundance or plenty, usually…)
GermanReichtum, Vermögen (riches; valuable material possessions), Fülle (great amount; an abundance or plenty, usually…)
Portugueseriqueza (riches; valuable material possessions), abundância (great amount; an abundance or plenty, usually…), poder (power, of the kind associated with a great deal…)
Spanishprosperidad, riqueza (riches; valuable material possessions)

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 wealth come from?

Inherited from Middle English welth, welthe (“happiness, prosperity”), from Old English *welþ, *welþu, from Proto-West Germanic *waliþu (“wealth”). Alternatively, possibly an alteration (due to similar words in -th: compare helth (“health”), derth (“dearth”)) of wele (“wealth, well-being, weal”), from Old English wela (“wealth, prosperity”), from Proto-Germanic *walô (“well-being, prosperity”), from Proto-Indo-European *wel- (“good, best”); equivalent to weal + -th (abstract nominal suffix).

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

What to look up after wealth