Syllable counter.

How the syllable count works

For each word the tool looks it up in a bundled subset of the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary. A syllable is counted as one vowel sound: the number of vowel phonemes (the ARPAbet symbols that end in a stress digit 0, 1 or 2) in the first pronunciation listed. Words that are not in the subset, such as many names and new words, get an estimate from spelling rules and are underlined in the results. The spelling rules are a heuristic and can be wrong, so check underlined words by ear.

Haiku and limerick checks

• Haiku: traditional Japanese haiku use 17 morae (on) in a 5-7-5 pattern, and haiku in English often appear as three lines but vary widely in form. Syllables are not morae, so the check only tests the common English 5-7-5 syllable convention on exactly three lines.
• Limerick: five lines with the rhyme scheme AABBA, where lines 1, 2 and 5 rhyme and lines 3 and 4 are shorter and share a different rhyme. The check compares end-word rhymes from the dictionary and requires lines 3 and 4 to have fewer syllables than lines 1, 2 and 5. It does not test the meter (stress pattern).

Worked example

The three lines "An old silent pond", "A frog jumps into the pond" and "Splash! Silence again." (example text) count as 5, 7, 5 syllables, which matches 5-7-5. The five-line example "A tailor who lived in the town / Wore a very peculiar brown gown / He sewed in the night / By the moon's silver light / And never once frowned or looked down" passes the limerick check here: 8, 9, 8 syllables on lines 1, 2 and 5, 5 and 6 on lines 3 and 4, with town, gown and down rhyming and night and light rhyming.

Limits

Pronunciation varies by accent and speaker, so a dictionary count is one common reading, not the only one. Digits are ignored and abbreviations are counted as the letters written. For readability scores such as Flesch, use the readability checker.

Dictionary credit. Syllable counts and rhymes use a subset of the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary, Copyright (C) 1993-2015 Carnegie Mellon University (BSD-style licence, github.com/cmusphinx/cmudict). The dictionary is provided "as is" without warranty; its maintainers say it contains errors, omissions and inconsistencies.

Sources (each opened October 8, 2026): CMU Pronouncing Dictionary (cmusphinx/cmudict, README and LICENSE); Wikipedia, Haiku; Wikipedia, Limerick (poetry).