Syllable Counter
Type or paste a word, a sentence or a few lines of verse and see the total syllables, the number of words and the average syllables per word. When your text has several lines the counter totals each one, which is what you need for a haiku, a limerick or song lyrics. Free, no sign-up, and nothing is uploaded.
How to Use the Syllable Counter
- Enter your text. One word, a sentence, or several lines. Put each verse on its own line if you want per-line totals.
- Read the totals. Syllables, words and the average syllables per word appear at once.
- Check the lines. With two or more lines, a list gives the syllable count of each. A haiku should read 5, 7, 5.
- Inspect the words. For 40 words or fewer, each word is listed with its own count, so you can see which one pushes a line over.
A Worked Example
The sample in the box is a three-line poem: An old silent pond / A frog jumps into the pond— / Splash! Silence again. The counter reports 17 syllables in 13 words, an average of 1.31 per word, and the three lines come to 5, 7 and 5. The two-syllable words are silent, into, silence and again, and every other word has one.
How the Count Works
The counter keeps only the letters a to z, treating accented letters as their plain forms, and counts groups of adjacent vowels, treating y as a vowel, so each group is one syllable. It then corrects for the patterns that move the count: a silent final e (come), a sounded -le (table), an -ed that is silent after most consonants (jumped is one syllable, wanted is two), the i of -ing after a vowel (playing), vowel pairs that are two sounds (create, poem, science), and endings such as -tion that sound as one. A list of several hundred words the rules get wrong covers the rest, and a hyphenated word is counted part by part. Every word has at least one syllable. This is a rule of thumb, not a dictionary, but checked against the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary it agrees on about 98 in 100 common English word forms.
Where the Estimate Is Wrong
English spelling does not follow its pronunciation, and spelling rules cannot see which vowels a speaker drops. Most of the remaining errors are words that people say with fewer syllables than they are written with, shown here with what the counter reports against the spoken count:
| Word | Counter | Spoken | Why |
|---|---|---|---|
| Wednesday | 3 | 2 | The d is silent: WENZ-day. |
| chocolate | 3 | 2 | The middle o is dropped: CHOK-lit. |
| vegetable | 4 | 3 | The second e is dropped: VEJ-tuh-bul. |
| temperature | 4 | 3 | TEM-pruh-chur drops a vowel. |
| familiar | 4 | 3 | The i and a run together: fuh-MIL-yur. |
| fire, hour | 1 | 1 or 2 | Some speakers add a vowel before the r. The counter follows printed dictionaries and gives 1. |
Compound words and words where a stress pattern squeezes out a vowel are the usual culprits. For poetry or schoolwork, check unusual words against a dictionary, which shows the syllable breaks, and correct the total by hand.
Counting Syllables by Hand
- One vowel sound, one syllable. Say the word slowly; each beat is a syllable. Rest a hand under your chin; it drops once per syllable.
- Count sounds, not letters. Queue has four vowel letters and one sound.
- Silent e doesn't count. Make and time are one syllable each.
- Consonant + le counts. Table, little and simple have two syllables, as the le is sounded.
- Check -ed. Count it only after t or d: wanted is two syllables, walked is one.
Haiku and syllables
The 5-7-5 pattern is an English convention. Traditional Japanese haiku count sound units called on, which are shorter than English syllables, so English poets often vary the pattern. Check what your assignment asks for.
Which Tool Do You Need?
| If you want… | Use |
|---|---|
| Syllables for a word, line or poem | This page |
| A grade level that uses syllables per word | Readability Score Checker |
| Words in rhyme with a line ending | Rhyme Finder |
| Total words, sentences and characters | Word Counter |
| Vowels and consonants rather than syllables | Vowel & Consonant Counter |
Frequently Asked Questions
- What is a syllable?
- A syllable is a unit of pronunciation built around one vowel sound, with or without consonants before or after it. Cat has one syllable, table has two and syllable has three.
- How accurate is this syllable counter?
- It is accurate for most words but is an estimate, because it works from spelling alone. Checked against the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary, it matches on about 98 in 100 of the common English word forms tested, including words such as create, poem and jumped. It misjudges some words that speakers shorten, such as Wednesday, chocolate and vegetable. For exact counts, check a dictionary.
- How do I count the syllables in a sentence or a poem?
- Paste it in. The total appears for the whole text, and if the lines are separated by line breaks a count is shown for each line. For a haiku, the three lines should come to 5, 7 and 5.
- Does the counter work for languages other than English?
- It is built for English spelling. Its rules about silent e and -le endings do not suit other languages, so counts for them will be unreliable.
- How are numbers and punctuation handled?
- Only letters are counted. A figure such as 2024 has no letters, so it adds nothing, and punctuation attached to a word is ignored.
- Why do the syllable counts differ from other tools?
- Syllable counting from spelling has no single right rule, so every tool makes slightly different choices. The Readability Score Checker and the Reading Time Calculator use this same counter for English words, so they agree with it.
- Is my text uploaded?
- No. The counting is done in your browser and nothing is sent or stored.