Cruella

noun

"cruella" is a 7-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.

The verdict

“Cruella” is uncommon English (frequency #58,620 among 43,570 “C” headwords), classed as a noun. The kind of spelling people second-guess.

#58,620
frequency rank, English
43,570
“C” headwords

According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - A cruel, despicable, or otherwise unpleasant woman.

Key facts for Cruella
PropertyValue
HeadwordCruella
LanguageEnglish
Part of speechNoun
Letters7
Frequency rank#58,620
Misspellings tracked0
Confusable pairs0
SourceWiktionary (kaikki.org)

Where “Cruella” sits in English frequency

Every-word frequency runs from the handful of words we use constantly (left) to the long tail used once in a blue moon (right). Cruella lands here:

#1#100#1K#10K#100K
← used constantlyrarely used →

Scale is logarithmic (each tick is 10× rarer). Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list.

Rare enough to double-check

Cruella is uncommon English at frequency #58,620 among 43,570 “C” headwords, classed as anoun. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. Gloss: "A cruel, despicable, or otherwise unpleasant woman.".

The misspelling generator found no plausible variants for Cruella, a sign its spelling follows regular English conventions. It is not paired with a close-neighbour confusable in our dataset, since nothing in our dataset looks or sounds close enough to cause mix-ups.

Etymologically, the entry records: After the fictional character Cruella de Vil (a pun on the words cruel and devil); from cruel + -a (forming female names). The correct English form is Cruella, spelled C-R-U-E-L-L-A.

Definition

  1. 1
    A cruel, despicable, or otherwise unpleasant woman.

Etymology

After the fictional character Cruella de Vil (a pun on the words cruel and devil); from cruel + -a (forming female names).

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.

Frequently Asked Questions

How do you spell "Cruella"?
"Cruella" is spelled C-R-U-E-L-L-A.
What does "Cruella" mean?
As a noun, "Cruella" means: A cruel, despicable, or otherwise unpleasant woman.
What is the origin of the word "Cruella"?
After the fictional character Cruella de Vil (a pun on the words cruel and devil); from cruel + -a (forming female names). See the full etymology section above for more details.
Is PlainSpell free to use?
Yes, PlainSpell is a completely free word reference. You can look up definitions, pronunciations, confusable pairs, homophones, and spelling corrections across 5 languages without any sign-up or subscription.

Using “Cruella”

The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.

  • The one correct English spelling is C-R-U-E-L-L-A - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
  • 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.

Source: Wiktionary (via kaikki.org) Structured Wiktionary extract

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list FrequencyWords open word-frequency list