Skip to main content

xmas

/ˈkɹɪs.məs/noun

xmas is spelled X-M-A-S: 4 letters. It appears 1.8 times per million words in written English, the 20,906th most frequent word form (wordfreq, 2021 data). As a noun, xmas means “Alternative form of Xmas” (English Wiktionary, September 2026). The plural of xmas is xmases.

How many letters and syllables are in xmas?

Letters4: X-M-A-S
In writing1.8 times per million words; the 20,906th most frequent word form
Wrong spellings searchednone measured in search
Sounds like

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).

How common is xmas?

Xmas appears 1.8 times per million words in written English, the 20,906th 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 xmas?

  • /ˈkɹɪs.məs/
  • /ˈɛks.məs/

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Recordings: LL-Q1860_(eng)-Vealhurl-Xmas.wav, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).

Words people confuse with xmas

Sounds like: Christmas (Wiktionary's homophone list; some hold only in some accents).

Sources: English Wiktionary (homophones, alternative spellings).

Forms of xmas

  • x-mas
  • xmases plural

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

What does xmas mean?

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

noun

  1. 1

    informalAlternative form of Xmas.

verb

as Xmas
  1. 1

    informalAbbreviation of Christmas.

noun

as XMAs
  1. 1

    plural of XMA (a form of XMA)

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

Where does xmas come from?

Attested in this form since 1755, and preceded by earlier forms such as X'temmas (1551) and Old English Χp̃es mæssa (1100), from Cristes mæsse, with abbreviation of Cristes by the symbol X, orthographic borrowing from Ancient Greek Χ (Kh, letter chi), from Χριστός (Khristós, “Christ”). By surface analysis, X (“Christ”) + -mas (“holiday”). In popular use since late 19th century. See Wikipedia for more information.

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

What to look up after xmas