Word Pronunciation & Dictionary

vanessa

/vəˈnɛsə/

Word Rarity Rare

Frequency: Zipf frequency 3.72 in modern English

Syllables: Va-nes-sa
IPA: /vəˈnɛsə/

10

Scrabble Score

7

Letters

3

Syllables

5

Unique Chars

Meaning

name

A female given name originating as a coinage.

noun

Any butterfly of the genus Vanessa.

Example Sentences

"Vanessa be the Name / By which thou shalt be known to Fame. / Vanessa, by the Gods enroll'd: / Her Name on Earth - shall not be told."
"A kind of girl that May had before only seen in the pages of fashion magazines, bored, disdainful, elegant, reluctantly admitted her. - - - She was asked to see Vanessa on the way out. She knew that the girl would be called something like Vanessa."
"Vanessa likes the ultrapopular Madison as a girl's name, which tells you everything you need to know about her personality."
"Democrats called for investigation, not resignation, after Vanessa Tyson accused Justin Fairfax of sexual assault earlier this week."
"The Nymphalidae are a very extensive group, of generally strong-winged and very bright-coloured butterflies, very abundant in the tropics, and represented in our own country by our Fritillaries, our Vanessas, and our Purple-emperor."

Etymology

Coined by Jonathan Swift in the 18th century as a pseudonym for a lady friend named Esther Vanhomrigh (or Van Homrigh), an Irish woman of Dutch descent, by taking the Dutch preposition van from her surname and adding -essa (perhaps influenced by the first syllable of Esther).

Origin

Source language: Dutch

Word Breakdown

Root: -

Inflected Forms

vanessas (plural)

Derived Forms

Janessa Jenessa

Frequently Paired Words

Cedric Pamela

Rhymes With

odessa tessa essa nessa messa walesa sessa teressa ressa paonessa hesse contessa

Questions

How do you pronounce vanessa?: The recorded pronunciation is /vəˈnɛsə/.
What does vanessa mean?: A female given name originating as a coinage.
Where does vanessa come from?: It is traced to Dutch.

How to pronounce vanessa

Open the pronunciation page — Open the Speakur entry for “vanessa”.
Read the phonetic spelling — Read the IPA spelling (/vəˈnɛsə/) so you know which sounds to aim for.
Play the audio — Click Play to hear reference audio for “vanessa”.
Repeat and practice — Say “vanessa” aloud, matching stress and vowels until it feels natural.