cere
/sɪɚ/
"cere" is a 4-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“cere” is uncommon English (frequency #94,667 among 5,599 “C” headwords), classed as a noun. The kind of spelling people second-guess.
- #94,667
- frequency rank, English
- 5,599
- “C” headwords
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - A fleshy, waxy area at the base of the upper beak in certain birds.
Corpus desk
Index EN-cere · cere · English
cere · rank #94,667 · 0 variants · 0 confusables
- FREQ-RARE #94,667
- LEN-MID 4 letters
- VOW-2 2 vowels
- CONFUS-0 No pairs
- VAR-0 0 variants
- BOOK-DENSE 5,599
- PHOTO-FINISH chancey
Nearest frequency peer: chancey (+3 rank slots)
Read with this headword: Spelling guide for this pattern
Desk codes from Wiktionary headword shape, FrequencyWords rank tier, confusable-pair count, generated misspelling depth, letter-cohort book size, and photo-finish peer. Not a difficulty grade.
Long-tail ranks near “cere”
Sparse band: bars invert rank so rarer forms read shorter
- carrack
carrack
5,343 corpus weight
- cattleman
cattleman
5,339 corpus weight
- cere
cere
5,334 corpus weight
- chancey
chancey
5,331 corpus weight
- chancing
chancing
5,330 corpus weight
- chartist
chartist
5,329 corpus weight
What this shows Long-tail view: where “cere” sits against similarly uncommon English ranks.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | cere |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | /sɪɚ/ |
| Letters | 4 |
| Frequency rank | #94,667 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Long-tail rank of “cere” in English
Rare enough to double-check
cere is uncommon English at frequency #94,667 among 5,599 “C” headwords, classed as anoun, transcribed /sɪɚ/. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. Gloss: "A fleshy, waxy area at the base of the upper beak in certain birds.".
No generated misspelling entries exist for cere in our index, since its letter pattern doesn't lend itself to common typo substitutions. It is not paired with a close-neighbour confusable in our dataset, which typically means the spelling is too distinctive to be mistaken for another word.
Etymologically, the entry records: From Middle English sere, from Old French cire, from Latin cera (“wax, cere”), or via Latin cero (“I smear or coat with wax”). The correct English form is cere, spelled C-E-R-E.
Definition
- 1A fleshy, waxy area at the base of the upper beak in certain birds.
Recorded use
Wiktionary exampleThese source excerpts show how cere appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.
The cere is the fleshy spot just above the beak where the nostrils, or nares, are located. In some species, like the parakeet, the cere is prominent; in others, the cere is covered by feathers. Both the cere and the nares should be clean[…]
Etymology
From Middle English sere, from Old French cire, from Latin cera (“wax, cere”), or via Latin cero (“I smear or coat with wax”).
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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Similar English words by spelling shape
Same letter count and similar misspelling depth for "cere", not the corpus desk frequency band.
Same letter count
Frequency-ranked English headwords with 4 letters (nearest by frequency rank).