Syllable Counter
Count syllables in words or sentences
Total syllables
Words
Avg per word
About the Syllable Counter
This tool counts the syllables in each word of your text and shows the total syllable count. Paste a word, sentence, or entire passage and get a per-word breakdown alongside the running total. The counter uses a linguistic heuristic that handles the vast majority of English words correctly.
Syllable counting is useful for writing poetry in metered forms (haiku, sonnets, iambic pentameter), checking the Flesch-Kincaid readability score, setting text to music, teaching phonics, and verifying that a word fits a specific rhythmic pattern. A syllable is a unit of pronunciation with a single vowel sound.
Frequently asked questions
How does it count syllables?
It uses pronunciation data when the word is in the dictionary, falling back to a vowel-cluster heuristic for unknown words. This gives correct counts for most common words and a reasonable estimate for rare ones.
Why is the count sometimes off by one?
English pronunciation varies by region and speaker. 'Family' is two or three syllables depending on how you say it, 'fire' is one or two. The count reflects the most common spoken form.