cement
Definition, pronunciation, etymology, and usage for the English word. Free spelling reference powered by Wiktionary.
Letters
6 characters
Language
English
word origin
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Detailed reference entry for the English word "cement", 6-letters, with pronunciation in International Phonetic Alphabet notation, etymology traced through Germanic and Romance roots where applicable, common misspelling variants catalogued from Hunspell error dictionaries, and usage frequency ranked against the top 100,000 English words in the Wordfreq corpus. PlainSpell covers English, Spanish, Portuguese, French, and German spelling with confusable-pair detection that highlights visually and phonetically similar words. This entry for "cement" 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 "cement" for academic writing, checking homophone confusion, or exploring etymological origins, this page provides a citation-backed, free reference that requires no sign-up.
cement is aEnglishnoun. It means: A powdered substance produced by firing (calcining) calcium carbonate (limestone) and clay that develops strong cohesive properties when mixed with water. The main ingredient of concrete. Pronounced /səˈmɛnt/. It ranks #7,775 in English word frequency. Often confused with cent and comet.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | cement |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | /səˈmɛnt/ |
| Letters | 6 |
| Frequency rank | #7,775 |
| Misspellings tracked | 9 |
| Confusable pairs | 9 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Frequency rank visualization
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for cement is 6 letters long, classified as anoun, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /səˈmɛnt/. Corpus data places it at rank #7,775 in overall English word frequency, indicating it appears regularly in written and spoken text.Wiktionary records 5 distinct senses for this headword, so context determines which meaning a reader should apply.
Our Hunspell-derived misspelling index lists 9 documented wrong-spelling variants for cement, with forms such as "ccement", "ceemnt", and "cemennt". Each variant represents a distinct typo pattern that appears often enough in corpora to be worth flagging, typically a doubled-consonant error, a silent-letter drop, or a vowel substitution.It also participates in 9 confusable-pair relationships, "cent", "comet", "client", and more, where similar look or sound leads writers to substitute one word for another in context.
Etymologically, the entry records: From Middle English syment, cyment, from Old French ciment, from Latin caementum (“quarry stone; stone chips for making mortar”), from caedō (“to cut, hew”). Doublet of cementum. 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 cement, spelled C-E-M-E-N-T, and any other sequence of those letters, regardless of how natural it feels, is a misspelling in standard orthography.
Definition
- 1A powdered substance produced by firing (calcining) calcium carbonate (limestone) and clay that develops strong cohesive properties when mixed with water. The main ingredient of concrete.
- 2The paste-like substance resulting from mixing such a powder with water, or the rock-like substance that forms when it dries.
- 3Any material with strong adhesive and cohesive properties such as binding agents, glues, grout.
- 4A bond of union; that which unites firmly, as persons in friendship or in society.
- 5The layer of bone investing the root and neck of a tooth; cementum.
Etymology
From Middle English syment, cyment, from Old French ciment, from Latin caementum (“quarry stone; stone chips for making mortar”), from caedō (“to cut, hew”). Doublet of cementum.
This word in other languages
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as: ccement,ceemnt,cemennt,cementt,cemetn,cemment,cemnet,cmeent,ecment
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
Relative frequency of common misspelling types for cement
Misspelling Variants of "cement"
Frequency rank: #7,775 in English
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Nearby English words
Other entries that begin with the letter C in our English index: