How many syllables in “homeless”?

“homeless” has 2 syllables: home·less

IPA
/ˈhoʊm.ləs/
Stress
HOME-less (pattern 1-0)
Division
home·less

Pronunciation

Say it likeIPASyllablesCountSource
HOME-less /ˈhoʊm.ləs/ hh ow m · l ah s 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)
home·less
Morphemes (2)
home + -less

The syllable breaks of homeless (home·less) line up with its morphemes (home + -less): 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 "homeless"?
"homeless" has two syllables: home·less.
How do you divide "homeless" into syllables?
home·less. The syllable breaks of homeless (home·less) line up with its morphemes (home + -less): 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.