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cast-pearls-before-swine

Definition, pronunciation, etymology, and usage for the English word. Free spelling reference powered by Wiktionary.

Detailed reference entry for the English word "cast-pearls-before-swine", 24-letters, with pronunciation in International Phonetic Alphabet notation, etymology traced through Germanic and Romance roots where applicable, common misspelling variants catalogued from Wiktionary, and usage frequency ranked against an open word-frequency list covering the top 100,000 English words. PlainSpell covers English, Spanish, Portuguese, French, and German spelling with confusable-pair detection that highlights visually and phonetically similar words. This entry for "cast-pearls-before-swine" includes synonyms, antonyms, homophones, and cross-language translation pointers sourced from Wiktionary via the kaikki.org extract. Whether you are verifying the correct spelling of "cast-pearls-before-swine" for academic writing, checking homophone confusion, or exploring etymological origins, this page provides a citation-backed, free reference that requires no sign-up.

The verdict

“cast pearls before swine” is outside the top-ranked English vocabulary, used as a verb — the kind of word writers most often double-check.

Unranked
below top-frequency English
24
letters

Dominant Wiktionary sense: To give things of value to those who will not understand or appreciate them.

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Key facts for cast pearls before swine
PropertyValue
Headwordcast pearls before swine
LanguageEnglish
Part of speechVerb
Letters24
Misspellings tracked0
Confusable pairs0
SourceWiktionary (kaikki.org)

Where “cast pearls before swine” sits in English frequency

cast pearls before swine falls outside the top-100,000 ranked English words — the long-tail zone of technical, archaic, or low-frequency vocabulary, exactly where readers second-guess spellings most.

Beyond rank #100,000. Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list.

Spelling & Dictionary Insight

The English entry for cast pearls before swine is 24 letters long, classified as a verb. 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: "To give things of value to those who will not understand or appreciate them.".

No misspelling variants are generated for cast pearls before swine in our index, suggesting the orthography follows predictable English patterns. It is not paired with a close-neighbour confusable in our dataset, which tends to mean the word is visually distinctive enough to stand on its own.

Etymologically, the entry records: From the Bible "Give not that which is holy unto the dogs, neither cast ye your pearls before swine, lest they trample them under their feet, and turn again and rend you." – KJV, Matthew 7:6. Root origin matters for spelling because borrowed morphemes (Greek, Latin, Old French, Old English) carry their source-language orthographic conventions into modern English, which is why historical etymology is often the cleanest predictor of whether a cluster like "-ough", "-eau", or "-tion" will appear. For readers arriving here from a spelling check, the authoritative guidance is: the correct English form is cast pearls before swine, spelled C-A-S-T- -P-E-A-R-L-S- -B-E-F-O-R-E- -S-W-I-N-E, and any other sequence of those letters, regardless of how natural it feels, is a misspelling in standard orthography.

Definition

  1. 1
    To give things of value to those who will not understand or appreciate them.

Etymology

From the Bible "Give not that which is holy unto the dogs, neither cast ye your pearls before swine, lest they trample them under their feet, and turn again and rend you." – KJV, Matthew 7:6.

Synonyms

This word in other languages

Frequently Asked Questions

How do you spell "cast pearls before swine"?
"cast pearls before swine" is spelled C-A-S-T- -P-E-A-R-L-S- -B-E-F-O-R-E- -S-W-I-N-E.
What does "cast pearls before swine" mean?
As a verb, "cast pearls before swine" means: To give things of value to those who will not understand or appreciate them.
What is the origin of the word "cast pearls before swine"?
From the Bible "Give not that which is holy unto the dogs, neither cast ye your pearls before swine, lest they trample them under their feet, and turn again and rend you." – KJV, Matthew 7:6. See the full etymology section above for more details.
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Using “cast pearls before swine”

The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.

  • The one correct English spelling is C-A-S-T- -P-E-A-R-L-S- -B-E-F-O-R-E- -S-W-I-N-E — every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
  • Browse more English words and confusable pairs in the same reference. English words

Nearby English words

Other entries that begin with the letter C in our English index:

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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.