incumbent

Other forms of incumbent

plural

incumbents·

Forms marked · are formed by the regular rule rather than recorded in the source data. English keeps a few hundred irregulars and the rest follow the pattern, so the rule is right far more often than not — but it is a rule, and the mark says so.

Questions about incumbent

What does incumbent mean?

incumbent means "lying or leaning on something else". That is the primary sense; the word has 4 in total, listed in full on this page.

How many syllables are in incumbent?

incumbent has 3 syllables: in-cum-bent. The stress falls on "cum". In IPA it is /ˌɪnˈkʌmbənt/.

What is another word for incumbent?

Close synonyms include officeholder. Each sense on this page lists its own synonyms, because a word with several meanings rarely has one substitute that works for all of them.

Is incumbent a common word?

incumbent is banded "Uncommon" — turns up in careful writing rather than conversation. The band comes from how often the word appears in a large corpus of everyday English, not from an editor's impression.