whit
/wɪt/noun, preposition
whit is spelled W-H-I-T: 4 letters and one syllable. It appears 1.4 times per million words in written English, the 24,170th most frequent word form (wordfreq, 2021 data). People search “whit vs wit” about 90 times a month (Google, United States). As a noun, whit means “The smallest part or particle imaginable; an iota” (English Wiktionary, September 2026). The plural of whit is whits.
How many letters and syllables are in whit?
| Letters | 4: W-H-I-T |
|---|---|
| Syllables | 1 (from its American pronunciation) |
| In writing | 1.4 times per million words; the 24,170th most frequent word form |
| Wrong spellings searched | none measured in search |
| Pairs people 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); 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); rhymes and same-letter words are computed by PlainSpell from its own word list.
How common is whit?
Whit appears 1.4 times per million words in written English, the 24,170th 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 whit?
- /wɪt/
- /ʍɪt/
Whit 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).
Words people confuse with whit
Word pairs people search, with the monthly searches for “a vs b” (G: Google, B: Bing, United States).
Sounds like: wit (Wiktionary's homophone list; some hold only in some accents).
Sources: Google and Bing searches (September 2025 to August 2026, through DataForSEO); English Wiktionary (homophones, alternative spellings).
What rhymes with whit?
No other word on PlainSpell ends in the same sounds as whit.
Spelled with the same letters in another order: with.
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 whit
- whits plural
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
What does whit mean?
The meanings the English Wiktionary records, quoted as written there (source below).
noun
- 1
datedThe smallest part or particle imaginable; an iota.
noun
- 1
Whitsunday.
Holonyms: Pentecost, Whitsun, Whitsuntide, Whit (season)
- 2
The season of Whitsuntide.
Meronyms: Pentecost, Whitsun, Whit (day)
preposition
- 1
Pronunciation spelling of with.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
Whit in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese
In the sense smallest part imaginable:
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 whit come from?
From Middle English wiȝt, wight, from Old English wiht (“wight, person, creature, being, whit, thing, something, anything”), from Proto-Germanic *wihtą (“thing, creature”) or *wihtiz (“essence, object”), from Proto-Indo-European *wekti- (“cause, sake, thing”), from *wekʷ- (“to say, tell”). Cognate with Old High German wiht (“creature, thing”), Dutch wicht, German Wicht. Doublet of wight.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).