cereal
/ˈsɪə.ɹɪ.əl/noun, adjective
cereal is spelled C-E-R-E-A-L: 6 letters and 3 syllables. It appears 5.5 times per million words in written English, the 10,519th most frequent word form (wordfreq, 2021 data). People search “cereal vs serial” about 50 times a month (Google, United States). As a noun, cereal means “A type of grass (such as wheat, rice or oats) cultivated for its edible grains” (English Wiktionary, September 2026). The plural of cereal is cereals.
How many letters and syllables are in cereal?
| Letters | 6: C-E-R-E-A-L |
|---|---|
| Syllables | 3 (from its American pronunciation) |
| In writing | 5.5 times per million words; the 10,519th most frequent word form |
| Wrong spellings searched | none measured in search |
| Pairs people search | |
| Sounds like | |
| Rhymes with |
Sources: letters and syllables from the English Wiktionary's hyphenation or pronunciation and the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary; written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media); Bing searches in the United States: the average month from September 2025 to August 2026 (Microsoft Advertising keyword data through DataForSEO, read September 30, 2026); rhymes and same-letter words are computed by PlainSpell from its own word list.
How common is cereal?
Cereal appears 5.5 times per million words in written English, the 10,519th most frequent word form in the list.
Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).
How do you pronounce cereal?
- UK /ˈsɪə.ɹɪ.əl/
- Canada [ˈsiːɹiəl]
Cereal has 3 syllables (counted from its American pronunciation in the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary).
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Recordings: En-us-cereal.ogg, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).
Words people confuse with cereal
Word pairs people search, with the monthly searches for “a vs b” (G: Google, B: Bing, United States).
Sounds like: serial (Wiktionary's homophone list; some hold only in some accents).
Sources: Google and Bing searches (September 2025 to August 2026, through DataForSEO); English Wiktionary (homophones, alternative spellings).
What rhymes with cereal?
2 words on PlainSpell end in the same sounds as cereal from its last stressed vowel (/ɪəɹɪəl/, British pronunciation):
Computed by PlainSpell from the pronunciations in the English Wiktionary (dump of September 2, 2026): a rhyme shares every sound from the last stressed vowel to the end; ordered by written frequency (wordfreq 3.1).
Forms of cereal
- cereals plural
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
What does cereal mean?
The meanings the English Wiktionary records, quoted as written there (source below).
noun
- 1
A type of grass (such as wheat, rice or oats) cultivated for its edible grains.
- 2
The grains of such a grass.
- 3
Breakfast cereal.
Would you like some cereal?
adjective
- 1
Of or relating to cereal.
adjective
- 1
Of or relating to the goddess Ceres.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
Cereal in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese
| Language | Words |
|---|---|
| French | céréale |
| German | Getreide, Korn, Zerealie , Frucht |
| Portuguese | cereal , cereais |
| Spanish | cereal, herbal , cereales, mies |
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Translations are Wiktionary's, by sense; a linked word has its own PlainSpell page.
Where does cereal come from?
Borrowed from French céréale (“having to do with cereal”), from Latin Cerealis (“of or relating to Ceres”), from Ceres (“Roman goddess of agriculture”), from Proto-Indo-European *ḱer- (“grow”), from which also Latin sincerus (English sincere) and Latin crēscō (“grow”) (English crescent). The adjective is equivalent to Cere(s) + -al.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).