How to pronounce “Worcestershire”

WUUS-tuh-shuh

3 syllables · stress on “WUUS”

WUUStuhshuh

Britishˈwʊstəʃə

Americanˈwʊstərʃər

In short

“Worcestershire” is pronounced WUUS-tuh-shuh: 3 syllables, with the stress on “WUUS”. It is the most famously mispronounced word in English. Fourteen letters collapse into three syllables: -cester becomes “stuh” and -shire becomes “shuh”, never “shire”. The version to avoid is WOR-ces-ter-shy-er — five syllables, sounding every letter.

Say “Worcestershire” in 3 steps

1Three syllables: WUUS-tuh-shuh.
2The -cester ending is always “stuh”. The whole middle of the spelling disappears.
3County names end in “-shuh”, never the word “shire”.

The version to avoid

Commonly said as: WOR-ces-ter-shy-er — five syllables, sounding every letter

It is the most famously mispronounced word in English. Fourteen letters collapse into three syllables: -cester becomes “stuh” and -shire becomes “shuh”, never “shire”.

Hear real people say it

Model audio is consistent; real speech is not. Hearing several actual speakers is what makes a word recognisable when someone says it at full speed.

Real speakers

1 human recording

Actual people saying “Worcestershire”, not a synthetic voice. Real speech varies — that variation is what you need to recognise, and what a single model voice cannot show you.

Recordings from Wikimedia Commons by No machine-readable author provided. Andrevan assumed (based on copyright claims)., licensed under CC BY 2.5. Full credits.

Practise it out loud

Reading about a sound does not change your mouth. Say it, hear it back, and fix one thing at a time.

Say it yourself

0/6 practised

Listen first, then record. You get feedback on the individual sounds, the stress and the rhythm — no account needed, and nothing is stored.

Three speakers per accent

Recordings are used only to generate this feedback and are not stored. Your accent is never penalised: IELTS scores intelligibility, and so do we.

The sounds inside this word

Each links to a full guide with mouth position, audio and drills. If a word keeps failing, the problem is usually one of these.

ww as in we ʊoo as in book ss as in see tt as in tea əa as in about (schwa)ʃsh as in she

More british place names

Same pattern, same fix. Learning them as a group is far faster than one at a time.

LeicesterLES-tuh GloucesterGLOS-tuh EdinburghED-in-bruh ThamesTEMZ GreenwichGREN-ich NorwichNO-rij

Frequently asked questions

How do you pronounce Worcestershire?

Worcestershire is pronounced WUUS-tuh-shuh, written /ˈwʊstəʃə/ in IPA. Three syllables: WUUS-tuh-shuh.

How many syllables are in Worcestershire?

three: WUUS-tuh-shuh. The stress falls on “WUUS”.

What is the most common mistake with Worcestershire?

WOR-ces-ter-shy-er — five syllables, sounding every letter. It is the most famously mispronounced word in English. Fourteen letters collapse into three syllables: -cester becomes “stuh” and -shire becomes “shuh”, never “shire”.

How do you pronounce Worcestershire sauce?

WUUS-tuh-shuh sauce, three syllables in the name. The -cester in the middle is reduced to a single “stuh” sound and the -shire ending is “shuh”.

The full sound library

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