wretch
/ɹɛt͡ʃ/noun
wretch is spelled W-R-E-T-C-H: 6 letters and one syllable. It appears about once in every 1 million words in written English, the 35,748th most frequent word form (wordfreq, 2021 data). People search “retch vs wretch” about 90 times a month (Google, United States). As a noun, wretch means “An unhappy, unfortunate, or miserable person” (English Wiktionary, September 2026). The plural of wretch is wretches.
How many letters and syllables are in wretch?
| Letters | 6: W-R-E-T-C-H |
|---|---|
| Syllables | 1 (from its American pronunciation) |
| In writing | about once in every 1 million words; the 35,748th most frequent word form |
| Wrong spellings searched | none measured in search |
| Pairs people search | |
| Sounds like |
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).
How common is wretch?
Wretch appears about once in every 1 million words in written English, the 35,748th 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 wretch?
- /ɹɛt͡ʃ/
Wretch 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-wretch.ogg, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).
Words people confuse with wretch
Word pairs people search, with the monthly searches for “a vs b” (G: Google, B: Bing, United States).
Sounds like: retch (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).
Forms of wretch
- wretches plural
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
What does wretch mean?
The meanings the English Wiktionary records, quoted as written there (source below).
noun
- 1
An unhappy, unfortunate, or miserable person.
- 2
An unpleasant, annoying, worthless, or despicable person.
- 3
archaicAn exile.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
Wretch in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese
In the sense unhappy, unfortunate, or miserable person:
| Language | Words |
|---|---|
| French | malheureux, malheureuse, misérable |
| German | Loser, Tropf, armer Schlucker, armer Teufel, armes Schwein, armseliger Wicht |
| Portuguese | miserável, desgraçado, coitado |
| Spanish | desgraciado, desventurado, desgraciada, desventurada |
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 wretch come from?
From Middle English wrecche, from Old English wreċċa (“exile, outcast”), from Proto-Germanic *wrakjô (“exile, fugitive, warrior”), from Proto-Indo-European *wreg- (“to track, follow”). Doublet of garçon.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).