chernozem
/ˈt͡ʃɜː(ɹ)nəˌzɛm/noun
chernozem is a noun meaning “A fertile black soil containing a very high percentage of humus (3% to 15%) and high percentages of phosphoric acids, phosphorus and ammonia” (English Wiktionary, September 2026). It is spelled C-H-E-R-N-O-Z-E-M, and it appears about once in every 52 million words in written English (wordfreq, 2021 data). The plural of chernozem is chernozems.
What does chernozem mean?
noun
- 1
A fertile black soil containing a very high percentage of humus (3% to 15%) and high percentages of phosphoric acids, phosphorus and ammonia.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
How do you pronounce chernozem?
- /ˈt͡ʃɜː(ɹ)nəˌzɛm/
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Recordings: LL-Q1860_(eng)-Vealhurl-chernozem.wav, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).
Forms of chernozem
- chernozems plural
- chernosem
- tschernosem
- tchernozem
- tchornozem
- chornozem
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
How common is chernozem?
Chernozem appears about once in every 52 million words in written English, the 225,584th 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).
Chernozem in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese
In the sense black-coloured soil containing a high percentage of humus:
| Language | Words |
|---|---|
| French | tchernoziom, tchernozème |
| German | Schwarzerde, Tschernosem |
| Portuguese | chernozem |
| Spanish | chernozem |
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 chernozem come from?
Borrowed from Russian чернозём (černozjóm, “black soil”). The letter ё (jo) is usually written as е (je) in Russian, more accurately transliterated as "chernozyom"; compare чернозе́мье (černozémʹje), where ё (jo) is changed to е (je).
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).