spasm

Other forms of spasm

plural

spasms·

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 spasm

What does spasm mean?

spasm means "a painful and involuntary muscular contraction". That is the primary sense; the word has 2 in total, listed in full on this page.

How many syllables are in spasm?

spasm has 2 syllables, though it cannot be divided in writing — the spelling has fewer vowels than the word has beats. In IPA it is /ˈspæzəm/.

What is another word for spasm?

Close synonyms include cramp, muscle spasm. 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 spasm a common word?

spasm 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.