List of Words Containing the Short OO /ʊ/ Sound

The spelling double O (OO) can have more than one sound in English. Usually it is either the long OO /u/, as in the word food, which is the same thing as the long U sound, or else it's the short OO /ʊ/ sound, as in the word foot. If you have to guess which one it is, guess the long OO /u/, because that pronunciation is much more common. However, there are a number of common words which have the short OO /ʊ/ sound, so it's good to learn them.

Here's an alphabetical list of the root words that have OO making the short OO /ʊ/ sound:

brook

cook

crook

foot

good

hood

hoof

hook

look

rook

rookie

shook

soot

stood

took

whoops

wood

woof

wool

Now remember, these are the root words, so there will be lots more words made from these roots, such as childhood, cookie, football, understood, hoodie, outlook, goodbye, etc.

And the /ʊ/ sound has other spellings as well, including O, OUL, and U. Here's a list of words with these spellings of the sound:

bosom

bull

bullet

bulletin

bully

bush

butcher

cushion

could

full

pudding

pull

pulpit

push

put

should

sugar

wolf

would

Hope that helps!

Did I miss any words? Let me know in a comment if you can think of any more!