initial

Other forms of initial

plural

initials·

past tense or participle

initialled

present participle

initialling

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 initial

What does initial mean?

initial means "the first letter of a word (especially a person's name)". That is the primary sense; the word has 3 in total, listed in full on this page.

How many syllables are in initial?

initial has 3 syllables: in-it-ial. The stress falls on "it". In IPA it is /ˌɪˈnɪʃəl/.

Is initial a common word?

initial is banded "Common" — everyday vocabulary in speech and writing. The band comes from how often the word appears in a large corpus of everyday English, not from an editor's impression.