cavan
"cavan" is a 5-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“cavan” is uncommon English (frequency #51,014 among 43,570 “C” headwords), classed as a noun. The kind of spelling people second-guess.
- #51,014
- frequency rank, English
- 43,570
- “C” headwords
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - A unit of dry capacity approximately equivalent to 2.3 US bushels.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | cavan |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| Letters | 5 |
| Frequency rank | #51,014 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “cavan” sits in English frequency
Rare enough to double-check
cavan is uncommon English at frequency #51,014 among 43,570 “C” headwords, classed as anoun. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. 3 senses are on record.
Our edit-distance generator produced no likely misspellings for cavan, since its letter pattern doesn't lend itself to common typo substitutions. This headword has no recorded confusable partner, which tends to mean the word is visually distinctive enough to stand on its own.
Etymologically, the entry records: From Spanish caván, from Tagalog kaban as "Manila cavan", via Cebuano as the "provincial cavan". The correct English form is cavan, spelled C-A-V-A-N.
Definition
- 1A unit of dry capacity approximately equivalent to 2.3 US bushels.
- 2A unit of dry capacity equivalent to one and a half times or twice the Manila cavan.
- 3A sackful equivalent to 50 kilograms.
Etymology
From Spanish caván, from Tagalog kaban as "Manila cavan", via Cebuano as the "provincial cavan".
Definitions, pronunciation, and etymology for this entry are drawn from Wiktionary via the kaikki.org structured extract (CC BY-SA); frequency ordering uses the FrequencyWords open word-frequency list (2018 English corpus, MIT). See the methodology for how each field is sourced and updated.
Frequently Asked Questions
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Using “cavan”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct English spelling is C-A-V-A-N - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
- Browse more English words and confusable pairs in the same reference. English words
Other uncommon English words near this rank
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.