Cereal or serial?
cereal is a noun meaning “A type of grass (such as wheat, rice or oats) cultivated for its edible grains”; serial is an adjective meaning “Having to do with or arranged in a series”. Use cereal as a noun and serial as an adjective (serial is also a noun: “A literary or dramatic work, such as a radio or television…”). They sound the same (/ˈsɪə.ɹɪ.əl/). In written English (wordfreq, 2021 data) serial is about 3.1 times as common as cereal.
What is the difference between cereal and serial?
| cereal | serial | |
|---|---|---|
| Part of speech | noun, adjective | adjective, noun, verb |
| Meaning | A type of grass (such as wheat, rice or oats) cultivated for its edible grains The grains of such a grass Of or relating to cereal | Having to do with or arranged in a series Who performs a specified action or course of action repeatedly or regularly A literary or dramatic work, such as a radio or television programme, published in installments, often numbered and without a specified end |
| Example | Would you like some cereal? | The serial killer had a string of victims across seven states |
| Forms | cereals | none |
| Pronunciation | /ˈsɪə.ɹɪ.əl/ [ˈsiːɹiəl] | /ˈsɪə.ɹɪ.əl/ /ˈsɪɹ.i.əl/ |
| In writing | 5.5 times per million words | 17 times per million words |
Sources: cereal and serial in the English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0); written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).
Every current meaning of cereal and serial
cereal
- 1
A type of grass (such as wheat, rice or oats) cultivated for its edible grains
- 2
Of or relating to cereal
- 3
Of or relating to the goddess Ceres
- 4
The grains of such a grass
- 5
Breakfast cereal
Would you like some cereal?
serial
- 1
Having to do with or arranged in a series
- 2
A literary or dramatic work, such as a radio or television programme, published in installments, often numbered and without a specified end
- 3
to assign a serial number to (especially of aircraft)
- 4
Who performs a specified action or course of action repeatedly or regularly
The serial killer had a string of victims across seven states
- 5
A publication issued in successive parts, often numbered and with no predetermined end
- 6
Published or produced in installments
- 7
slangA serial number, esp. one required to activate software
Go to these sites for serials, cracks and keygens
- 8
Of or relating to a grammatical aspect relating to an action that is habitual and ongoing
Source: the English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0); obsolete, archaic, dialect and rare senses left out.
Which is more common, cereal or serial?
cereal appears 5.5 times per million words; serial 17 times per million words.
cereal 5.5 times per million wordsserial 17 times per million words
Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).
How many people search cereal vs serial?
“cereal vs serial” is searched about 50 times a month on Google and 10 on Bing in the United States. Google counts close variants of a query together (“serial vs cereal”, “cereal or serial”).
Sources: Google Ads keyword data through DataForSEO and Microsoft Advertising keyword data through DataForSEO, the average month from September 2025 to August 2026.