cream
Definition, pronunciation, etymology, and usage for the English word. Free spelling reference powered by Wiktionary.
Letters
5 characters
Language
English
word origin
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Detailed reference entry for the English word "cream", 5-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 "cream" 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 "cream" for academic writing, checking homophone confusion, or exploring etymological origins, this page provides a citation-backed, free reference that requires no sign-up.
cream is aEnglishnoun. It means: The butterfat or milkfat part of milk which rises to the top; this part when separated from the remainder. Pronounced /kɹiːm/. It ranks #2,383 in English word frequency. Often confused with CRM and crew.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | cream |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | /kɹiːm/ |
| Letters | 5 |
| Frequency rank | #2,383 |
| Misspellings tracked | 7 |
| Confusable pairs | 20 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Frequency rank visualization
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for cream is 5 letters long, classified as anoun, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /kɹiːm/. Corpus data places it at rank #2,383 in overall English word frequency, indicating it appears regularly in written and spoken text.Wiktionary records 11 distinct senses for this headword, so context determines which meaning a reader should apply.
Our Hunspell-derived misspelling index lists 7 documented wrong-spelling variants for cream, with forms such as "ccream", "ceram", and "craem". 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 20 confusable-pair relationships, "CRM", "crew", "Cree", and more, where similar look or sound leads writers to substitute one word for another in context.
Etymologically, the entry records: From Middle English creime, creme, from Old French creme, cresme, blend of Late Latin chrisma (“ointment”) (from Ancient Greek χρῖσμα (khrîsma, “unguent”)), and Late Latin crāmum (“cream”), from Gaulish *crama (compare Welsh cramen (“scab, skin”), Breton cr… 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 cream, spelled C-R-E-A-M, and any other sequence of those letters, regardless of how natural it feels, is a misspelling in standard orthography.
Definition
- 1The butterfat or milkfat part of milk which rises to the top; this part when separated from the remainder.
- 2The butterfat or milkfat part of milk which rises to the top; this part when separated from the remainder.
- 3The butterfat or milkfat part of milk which rises to the top; this part when separated from the remainder.
- 4The butterfat or milkfat part of milk which rises to the top; this part when separated from the remainder.
- 5A yellowish white color; the color of cream.
- 6Frosting, custard, creamer, or another substance similar to the oily part of milk or to whipped cream.
- 7A dish prepared through creaming, particularly cream of
- 8The best part of something.
- 9A viscous aqueous oil or fat emulsion with a medicament added, used to apply that medicament to the skin. (compare with ointment)
- 10Semen.
- 11The chrism or consecrated oil used in anointing ceremonies.
Etymology
From Middle English creime, creme, from Old French creme, cresme, blend of Late Latin chrisma (“ointment”) (from Ancient Greek χρῖσμα (khrîsma, “unguent”)), and Late Latin crāmum (“cream”), from Gaulish *crama (compare Welsh cramen (“scab, skin”), Breton crammen), from Proto-Indo-European *(s)krama- (compare Middle Irish screm (“surface, skin”), Dutch schram (“abrasion”), Lithuanian kramas (“scurf”)). Doublet of crema and crème. Displaced native Old English rēam (“cream”) (> modern ream). Figurative sense of "most excellent element or part" appears from 1581. Verb meaning "to beat, thrash, wreck" is 1929, U.S. colloquial. The U.S. standard of identity is from 21 CFR 131.3(a).
This word in other languages
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as: ccream,ceram,craem,creamm,crema,crream,rceam
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
Relative frequency of common misspelling types for cream
Misspelling Variants of "cream"
Frequency rank: #2,383 in English
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Nearby English words
Other entries that begin with the letter C in our English index: