wool
/wʊl/noun
wool is spelled W-O-O-L: 4 letters and one syllable. It appears 8.1 times per million words in written English, the 8,146th most frequent word form (wordfreq, 2021 data). As a noun, wool means “The hair of the sheep, llama and some other ruminants” (English Wiktionary, September 2026). The plural of wool is wools.
How many letters and syllables are in wool?
| Letters | 4: W-O-O-L |
|---|---|
| Syllables | 1 (from its American pronunciation) |
| In writing | 8.1 times per million words; the 8,146th most frequent word form |
| Wrong spellings searched | none measured in search |
| Rhymes with |
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 wool?
Wool appears 8.1 times per million words in written English, the 8,146th 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 wool?
- UK /wʊl/
- US /wʊl/
- US [wʊ̠ɫ]
Wool 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-wool.ogg, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).
What rhymes with wool?
2 words on PlainSpell end in the same sounds as wool from its last stressed vowel (/ʊl/):
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 wool
- wools plural
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
What does wool mean?
The meanings the English Wiktionary records, quoted as written there (source below).
noun
- 1
The hair of the sheep, llama and some other ruminants.
- 2
A cloth or yarn made from such hair.
- 3
Anything with a fibrous texture like that of sheep's wool.
- 4
A dingy white color inspired by the natural shade of wool.
- 5
A fine fiber obtained from the leaves of certain trees, such as firs and pines.
- 6
obsoleteShort, thick hair, especially when crisped or curled.
- 7
UKYarn, including that made from synthetic fibers.
- 8
derogatoryA woolly back; a resident of a satellite town outside Liverpool, such as St Helens or Warrington. See also Yonner.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
Wool in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese
In the sense hair of sheep, etc:
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 wool come from?
From Middle English wolle, from Old English wull, from Proto-West Germanic *wullu, from Proto-Germanic *wullō, from Proto-Indo-European *h₂wĺ̥h₁neh₂.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).