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PlainSpell

wee

/wiː/adjective, noun, verb, interjection

wee is spelled W-E-E: 3 letters and one syllable. It appears 7.4 times per million words in written English, the 8,669th most frequent word form (wordfreq, 2021 data). As an adjective, wee means “Small, little” (English Wiktionary, September 2026).

How many letters and syllables are in wee?

Letters3: W-E-E
Syllables1 (from its American pronunciation)
In writing7.4 times per million words; the 8,669th most frequent word form
Wrong spellings searchednone measured in search
Sounds like
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 wee?

Wee appears 7.4 times per million words in written English, the 8,669th 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 wee?

  • /wiː/

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

Words people confuse with wee

Sounds like: Wii, oui, we, whee (Wiktionary's homophone list; some hold only in some accents).

Also written: whee.

Sources: English Wiktionary (homophones, alternative spellings).

What rhymes with wee?

No other word on PlainSpell ends in the same sounds as wee.

Spelled with the same letters in another order: ewe.

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 wee

  • weer comparative
  • weest superlative
  • wees plural, present, singular, he/she/it
  • weeing participle, present
  • weed participle, past

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

What does wee mean?

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

adjective

  1. 1

    IrelandScotlandSmall, little.

    You looked a little cold, so I lit a wee fire.

noun

  1. 1

    A short time or short distance.

  2. 2

    colloquialUrine.

  3. 3

    colloquialAn act of urination.

    I need to have a wee.

verb

  1. 1

    UKcolloquialTo urinate.

    I need to wee! I can't hold it any longer!

interjection

  1. 1

    Alternative form of whee.

  2. 2

    The squeal of a pig.

noun

as WEE
  1. 1

    Abbreviation of Western equine encephalomyelitis.

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

Wee in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese

LanguageWords
Frenchpetit (small, little), pipi (urine), faire pipi (to urinate)
Germanwinzig, klein (small, little), Pipi (urine), pinkeln, pissen, Pipi machen (to urinate)
Portuguesepequeno, miúdo (small, little), chichi, xixi (urine), fazer xixi (to urinate)
Spanishpequeño (small, little), orina, pis, pipí (urine), hacer pis, hacer pipi (to urinate)

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 wee come from?

From Middle English wey, weygh, wegh, weȝe, wæȝe (“little bit”), from Old English wǣġ, wǣġe (“weight”), from Proto-West Germanic *wāgu, from Proto-Germanic *wēgō (“scales, weight”) and *wēgǭ (“weight”), related to Middle English weġan (“to move, weigh”) (15c).

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

What to look up after wee