Two Syllable Words

September 5, 2023

Whether playing a syllable game with your friends or writing a poem or essay for school, learning two-syllable words is a great way to build and strengthen your English vocabulary. Here are some two-syllable words you should start mastering.

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2 Syllable Adjectives

Regardless of syllable count, adjectives can be useful when you want to emphasize a noun. But in case the instructions of your assignment specifically ask for 2-syllable adjectives, here are some of your options:

Happy: If you are in a good mood or optimistic about life, you can use the adjective “happy.”
Perfect: There are no spots, wrinkles, errors, or mistakes.
Joyful: Joyful is a long-term sense of gratification typically independent of immediate circumstances.
Thirsty: When thirsty, you drink water or another fluid to cool and refresh your body.
Awkward: Awkward applies to social or physical situations. But you can also use it to describe something that doesn’t fit right.
Tender: Tender meat is easy to cut, while tender hearts quickly feel pain — often in others.
Heavy: Something with a lot of physical mass is heavy, but so are deep and serious subjects.
Standard: Sometimes, a norm or average. It also represents what is general and expected. The American Kennel Club has standards for dog breeds, for example.
Thankful: When you appreciate your circumstances or a favor from a friend, you are thankful.
Common: Encountering something ordinary or unsurprising, you can use the two-syllable adjective “common occurrence.

2 Syllable Nouns

Like three-, four-, or five-syllable nouns, 2-syllable nouns can be a person, place, or thing. But did you know that there are nouns for intangible ideas? Here are some nouns with a two-syllable count.

Water: Water is a clear and tasteless liquid you drink when thirsty or dehydrated.
Future: Events not yet happening. For example, After a bitter argument with her husband, she worried about their future together.
Basket: A basket is often an open container to hold and carry items. Its sides are weaved, webbed, or meshed, so they are not waterproof.
Sugar: You’ll find sugar in sugarcane and fruit, for example. It makes things like coffee and chocolate taste sweet.
Office: With multiple meanings, office frequently refers to an enclosed workspace.
Challenge: A challenge could be a fight or a legal battle.
River: A waterway that flows toward the ocean — or into another ocean-bound waterway — counts as a river.
Apple: Although this fruit has many varieties, an apple is always crunchy and brightly colored.
Auto: As a noun, this is your car.
Lizard: This is a species of reptile that you can find everywhere except the polar regions.
Baseball: You can either throw a baseball — i.e., the cork sphere covered with wool, yarn, and cowhide — or you can play baseball, the game where the ball is batted, thrown, and caught.

2 Syllable Verbs

There are also plenty of 2-syllable verbs to choose from. Some of the most commonly used are:

Donate: Almost always, donate means to give or grant something without the expectation of being compensated.
Picture: When you picture something or somebody, you imagine it vividly.
Bottle: Bottling includes pouring liquid into a bottle and then capping the bottle.
Wonder: When an occurrence or person is hard to understand, you may wonder, i.e., strive to figure it out.
Forward: To pass a received item onto someone else is to forward it.
Distance: To expand the space — physical, emotional, legal — between you and an issue or another person is to distance yourself.
Mirror: As your visual reflection does, you mirror when you match another’s movements and traits from an opposite angle.
Party: To party means to celebrate and enjoy yourself with others.
Market: Make a product, service, or individual more appealing to the public. That is marketing.