Criterion or criterium?
criterion is a noun meaning “A standard, test, or requirement by which individual things or people may be…”; criterium is a noun meaning “A mass-start road-cycle race consisting of several laps around a closed…”. In written English (wordfreq, 2021 data) criterion is about 19 times as common as criterium.
What is the difference between criterion and criterium?
| criterion | criterium | |
|---|---|---|
| Part of speech | noun | noun |
| Meaning | A standard, test, or requirement by which individual things or people may be compared and judged; a gauge | A mass-start road-cycle race consisting of several laps around a closed circuit, the length of each lap or circuit ranging from about 1 km to 2 km (1/2 mile to… |
| Example | Near-synonym: benchmark | none recorded |
| Forms | criteria | criteriums |
| Pronunciation | /kɹɪˈtɪəɹi.ən/ /kɹaɪˈtɪə.ɹi.ən/ /kɹaɪˈtɪɹ.i.ən/ | /kɹaɪˈtɪəɹiəm/ |
| In writing | 2.9 times per million words | about once in every 7 million words |
Sources: criterion and criterium 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 criterion and criterium
criterion
- 1
A standard, test, or requirement by which individual things or people may be compared and judged; a gauge
Near-synonym: benchmark
criterium
- 1
A mass-start road-cycle race consisting of several laps around a closed circuit, the length of each lap or circuit ranging from about 1 km to 2 km (1/2 mile to just over 1 mile)
- 2
Alternative form of criterion
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, criterion or criterium?
criterion appears 2.9 times per million words; criterium about once in every 7 million words.
criterion 2.9 times per million wordscriterium about once in every 7 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 criterion vs criterium?
“criterion vs criterium” is searched about 30 times a month on Google and 10 on Bing in the United States. Google counts close variants of a query together (“criterium vs criterion”, “criterion or criterium”).
Sources: Google Ads keyword data through DataForSEO and Microsoft Advertising keyword data through DataForSEO, the average month from September 2025 to August 2026.