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Worcestershire is pronounced WOOS-ter-sher in American English and WOOS-tuh-shuh in British English. It has three syllables with the stress on the first. Worcester, the city, is just WOOS-ter, and the shire at the end is a weak sher, not shy-er.
Worcestershire
noun · a county in the west of England; also Worcestershire sauce, a dark, spicy sauce
IPA checked in the Cambridge Dictionary and Oxford Learner’s Dictionaries. The recording is American English.
Each sound in the IPA, with a word you already know that has it.
US American English/ˈwʊs.tɚ.ʃɚ/
WOOSstressed
ter
sher
UK British English/ˈwʊs.tə.ʃə/
WOOSstressed
tuh
shuh
Press the microphone and say it once. Your browser writes down what it hears: if it writes Worcestershire, you were understood. If it writes another word, you see which sound changed.
Tip. Worces is one short syllable, WOOS, with the oo of good. The r and the ce are not said.
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Worcestershire
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What people often say instead, and how to fix it. Say WOOS-ter-sher.
Notwor-SES-ter-shy-er
Reading every letter. Say three syllables: WOOS, then ter (US) or tuh (UK), then a weak sher or shuh.
NotWOR-ses-ter-sher
Keeping the r and the ce of Worces. The first part is one short syllable, WOOS, like wood with s in place of d.
NotWOOS-ter-shy-er
Saying shire as it sounds on its own. In the name it is weak: sher in the US, shuh in the UK.
Hear each one, slow it down, then say it. Words change a little when they join others, so practise them in sentences too.
Add a dash of Worcestershire sauce to the soup.
My grandparents live in a village in Worcestershire.
Worcestershire is a county in the west of England.
Worcestershire is the county of Worcester, a city in the west of England. Its Old English name ended in ceaster, a word for a Roman fort or town that comes from the Latin castra, a camp. The same ending is in Leicester, Gloucester and Bicester.
Over the centuries, everyday speech wore these names down. Wor-ces-ter became WOOS-ter, just as Leicester became LES-ter and Gloucester became GLOS-ter. The spelling stayed as it was.
Shire is an old word for a county. On its own it rhymes with fire, but at the end of a county name it is weak: shuh in British English, sher in American English. Worcestershire sauce, first sold in Worcester by the chemists Lea and Perrins in the 1830s, carried the name around the world.
Rhymes and words that share its tricky sound. Open any of them in the checker and say it.
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