sarsaparilla

Other forms of sarsaparilla

plural

sarsaparillas·

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 sarsaparilla

What does sarsaparilla mean?

sarsaparilla means "any of various prickly climbing plants of the tropical American genus Smilax having aromatic roots and heart-shaped leaves". That is the primary sense; the word has 2 in total, listed in full on this page.

How many syllables are in sarsaparilla?

sarsaparilla has 5 syllables and divides as sar-sa-pa-ril-la under the regular spelling rules. It is not in the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary, so that comes from how the word is written rather than from a recorded pronunciation, and no stress or phonetic transcription is claimed for it.

Is sarsaparilla a common word?

sarsaparilla 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.