woman
wom·an/ˈwʊmən/noun, verb
woman is spelled W-O-M-A-N, 2 syllables: wom·an. The wrong spelling people search most is wamen: about 50 Bing searches a month in the United States (September 2025 to August 2026), about 1 in 278 of all searches for the word. Woman is a noun meaning “An adult female human”. The plural of woman is women or women ☕.
How many letters and syllables are in woman?
| Letters | 5: W-O-M-A-N |
|---|---|
| Syllables | 2: wom·an |
| In writing | 224 times per million words; the 447th most frequent word form |
| Wrong spellings searched | 2; the most searched, wamen, about 50 Bing searches a month (all of them) |
| Pairs people search |
Sources: letters and syllables from the English Wiktionary's hyphenation or pronunciation; 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 woman?
Woman is spelled W-O-M-A-N. 2 wrong spellings are searched or written often enough to measure; together they are about 1 in 198 of the searches for woman 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 woman?
Woman appears 224 times per million words in written English, the 447th 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 woman?
- US /ˈwʊmən/
- British /ˈwɵmən/
- /ˈwʉmən/
Woman has 2 syllables, split wom·an in writing.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Recordings: WomanWav.wav, En-us-woman.ogg, En-uk-woman.ogg, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).
Words people confuse with woman
Word pairs people search, with the monthly searches for “a vs b” (G: Google, B: Bing, United States).
Sources: Google and Bing searches (September 2025 to August 2026, through DataForSEO); English Wiktionary (homophones, alternative spellings).
Forms of woman
- women plural
- womxn
- womyn
- wom*n
- wymyn
- womin
- wommon
- womon
- wimin
- wimmin
- wimmen
- wymmyn
- weoman
- whoman
- wimen
- womans present, singular, he/she/it
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
What does woman mean?
The meanings the English Wiktionary records, quoted as written there (source below).
noun
- 1
An adult female human.
the first woman president of Spain
- 2
All female humans collectively; womankind.
- 3
A female person, usually an adult: a (generally adult) female sentient being, whether human, supernatural, elf, alien, etc.
- 4
A wife (or sometimes a fiancée or girlfriend).
And then, when he lies with his woman, the man may concurrently be with God, and so get increase of his soul.
- 5
A female person who is extremely fond of or devoted to a specified type of thing. (Used as the last element of a compound.)
- 6
A female attendant or servant.
verb
- 1
To staff with female labor.
- 2
To make effeminate or womanish.
- 3
To furnish with, or unite to, a woman.
- 4
To call (a person) “woman” in a disrespectful fashion.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
Woman in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese
| Language | Words |
|---|---|
| French | femme |
| German | Frau, Weib, Weibchen, Weibsperson, Mensch , feminisieren |
| Portuguese | mulher |
| Spanish | mujer, jerma |
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 woman come from?
From Middle English womman, from earlier wimman, wifman, from Old English wīfmann (“woman”, literally “female person”), a compound of wīf (“woman, female”, whence English wife) + mann (“person, human being”, whence English man). For details on the pronunciation and spelling history, see the usage notes below.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).