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criteria

/kɹaɪˈtɪɹ.i.ə/noun

criteria is spelled C-R-I-T-E-R-I-A. The wrong spelling people search most is criterior: about 20 Bing searches a month in the United States (September 2025 to August 2026), about 1 in 233 of all searches for the word. Criteria is a noun meaning “plural of criterion”. The plural of criteria is criterias.

How do you spell criteria?

Criteria is spelled C-R-I-T-E-R-I-A. One wrong spelling is searched or written often enough to measure; together they are about 1 in 232 of the searches for criteria in either form.

criteriathe right spelling4,610 searches a month
criterioran extra o, r in place of a20 searches a month

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). Wrong spellings are taken from Wiktionary entries tagged "misspelling" and its obsolete or nonstandard forms, Wikipedia's Lists of common misspellings and the codespell dictionary, then measured. The proofreader's marks show the change that corrects each one.

What does criteria mean?

noun

  1. 1

    plural of criterion (a form of criterion)

    For quotations using this term, see Citations:criteria.

  2. 2

    nonstandardproscribedA single criterion.

    For quotations using this term, see Citations:criteria.

  3. 3

    nonstandardproscribedA set of criteria.

    For quotations using this term, see Citations:criteria.

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).

How do you pronounce criteria?

  • UK /kɹaɪˈtɪə.ɹi.ə/
  • UK [kɹaɪ̯ˈtɪə̯.ɹi.ə]
  • US /kɹaɪˈtɪɹ.i.ə/

Criteria has 4 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: LL-Q1860_(eng)-Vealhurl-criteria.wav, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).

Forms of criteria

  • criterias plural

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).

How common is criteria?

Criteria appears 16 times per million words in written English, the 5,025th 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).

Words people confuse with criteria

Word pairs people search, with the monthly searches for “a vs b” (G: Google, B: Bing, United States).

criteria vs criterion8,100 G

Sources: Google and Bing searches (September 2025 to August 2026, through DataForSEO); English Wiktionary (homophones, alternative spellings).

Where does criteria come from?

The plural form of criterion, formed according to the Ancient Greek -ον (-on) → -α (-a) pluralisation pattern.

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).