carious
/ˈkɛəɹi.əs/
"carious" is a 7-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“carious” is outside the top-ranked English vocabulary, used as an adjective - the kind of word writers most often double-check.
- Unranked
- below top-frequency English
- 7
- letters
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - Having caries (bone or tooth decay); decayed, rotten.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | carious |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Adjective |
| IPA | /ˈkɛəɹi.əs/ |
| Letters | 7 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “carious” sits in English frequency
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for carious is 7 letters long, classified as an adjective, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /ˈkɛəɹi.əs/. It sits outside the most-frequent rank tiers, which is often why uncommon words generate more spelling variants per reader. The dominant gloss from Wiktionary reads: "Having caries (bone or tooth decay); decayed, rotten.".
Our edit-distance generator produced no likely misspellings for carious, a sign its spelling follows regular English conventions. Our confusable-pair dataset has no match for it, since no other headword is close enough in sound or shape to pair with it.
Etymologically, the entry records: From French carieux (“carious”), from carie (“decay (of bone or teeth)”) (from Latin cariēs (“rot, rottenness, corruption”), from careō (“to lack, be deprived of”), from Proto-Italic *kazēō (“to lack”), possibly from Proto-Indo-European *ḱes- (“to cut”).) +… The correct English form is carious, spelled C-A-R-I-O-U-S.
Definition
- 1Having caries (bone or tooth decay); decayed, rotten.
Etymology
From French carieux (“carious”), from carie (“decay (of bone or teeth)”) (from Latin cariēs (“rot, rottenness, corruption”), from careō (“to lack, be deprived of”), from Proto-Italic *kazēō (“to lack”), possibly from Proto-Indo-European *ḱes- (“to cut”).) + French -eux (“-ous”) (from Latin -ōsus (“full of, prone to”), from Old Latin -ōsos, ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *-went-, *-wont- + *-to-)).
This word in other languages
Definitions, pronunciation, and etymology for this entry are drawn from Wiktionary via the kaikki.org structured extract (CC BY-SA). See the methodology for how each field is sourced and updated.
Frequently Asked Questions
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Using “carious”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct English spelling is C-A-R-I-O-U-S - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
- Say it as /ˈkɛəɹi.əs/ (IPA); tap the speaker on the pronunciation badge to hear it where audio exists.
- Browse more English words and confusable pairs in the same reference. English words
Data Source
Wiktionary (via kaikki.org), licensed under CC BY-SA & GFDL. Word ordering uses an open word-frequency list; misspelling variants are generated by edit-distance from the correct headword.