How many syllables in “helpful”?

“helpful” has 2 syllables: help·ful

IPA
/ˈhɛlp.fəl/
Stress
HELP-ful (pattern 1-0)
Division
help·ful

Pronunciation

Say it likeIPASyllablesCountSource
HELP-ful /ˈhɛlp.fəl/ hh eh l p · f ah l 2 CMU dictionary

Syllables are shown in ARPAbet (the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary's phoneme alphabet). Respellings put the stressed syllable in capitals.

Syllables vs. morphemes

Syllables (2)
help·ful
Morphemes (2)
help + -ful

The syllable breaks of helpful (help·ful) line up with its morphemes (help + -ful): every morpheme boundary is also a syllable boundary, so the word divides the same way for a syllable count and for a morphology exercise.

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Pronunciations from the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary. Hyphenation from the hyph_en_US patterns.

Frequently Asked Questions

How many syllables are in "helpful"?
"helpful" has two syllables: help·ful.
How do you divide "helpful" into syllables?
help·ful. The syllable breaks of helpful (help·ful) line up with its morphemes (help + -ful): every morpheme boundary is also a syllable boundary, so the word divides the same way for a syllable count and for a morphology exercise.
Is this syllable counter free?
Yes. The Fixie syllable counter is free, needs no signup, and runs in your browser; paste any text to count syllables, see stress and IPA.