cerium
/ˈsɪəɹiəm/
"cerium" is a 6-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“cerium” is uncommon English (frequency #77,518 among 43,570 “C” headwords), classed as a noun. The kind of spelling people second-guess.
- #77,518
- frequency rank, English
- 43,570
- “C” headwords
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - A chemical element (symbol Ce) with an atomic number of 58, a very soft, ductile, silvery-white metal that tarnishes when exposed to air.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | cerium |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | /ˈsɪəɹiəm/ |
| Letters | 6 |
| Frequency rank | #77,518 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “cerium” sits in English frequency
Rare enough to double-check
cerium is uncommon English at frequency #77,518 among 43,570 “C” headwords, classed as anoun, transcribed /ˈsɪəɹiəm/. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. Gloss: "A chemical element (symbol Ce) with an atomic number of 58, a very soft, ductile, silvery-white metal that tarnishes when exposed to air.".
We couldn't generate a plausible misspelling set for cerium, since its letter sequence doesn't invite the usual edit-distance slips. We don't track a confusable pairing for this entry, since nothing in our dataset looks or sounds close enough to cause mix-ups.
Etymologically, the entry records: From Ceres (“a famous asteroid”) + -ium. The element was discovered and named in 1803. It was named after the asteroid, which had been discovered recently (1801) and had been named after Ceres, the Roman goddess of agriculture. This was during an era when a… The correct English form is cerium, spelled C-E-R-I-U-M.
Definition
- 1A chemical element (symbol Ce) with an atomic number of 58, a very soft, ductile, silvery-white metal that tarnishes when exposed to air.
Etymology
From Ceres (“a famous asteroid”) + -ium. The element was discovered and named in 1803. It was named after the asteroid, which had been discovered recently (1801) and had been named after Ceres, the Roman goddess of agriculture. This was during an era when asteroids were culturally exciting things that humans were just beginning to understand properly in astronomical terms, and the era also featured a fascination with neoclassical themes and thus naming things after icons of ancient Greek and Roman mythology and literature.
This word in other languages
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.
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Using “cerium”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct English spelling is C-E-R-I-U-M - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
- Say it as /ˈsɪəɹiəm/ (IPA); tap the speaker on the pronunciation badge to hear it where audio exists.
- 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.