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curriculum-vitae

Definition, pronunciation, etymology, and usage for the English word. Free spelling reference powered by Wiktionary.

Letters

16 characters

Language

English

word origin

Source

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Detailed reference entry for the English word "curriculum-vitae", 16-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 "curriculum-vitae" 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 "curriculum-vitae" for academic writing, checking homophone confusion, or exploring etymological origins, this page provides a citation-backed, free reference that requires no sign-up.

curriculum vitae is aEnglishnoun. It means: A written account of one's life comprising one's education, accomplishments, work experience, publications, etc.; especially, one used to apply for a job. Pronounced /kəˈɹɪkjələm ˈviːteɪ/.

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Key facts for curriculum vitae
PropertyValue
Headwordcurriculum vitae
LanguageEnglish
Part of speechNoun
IPA/kəˈɹɪkjələm ˈviːteɪ/
Letters16
Misspellings tracked0
Confusable pairs0
SourceWiktionary (kaikki.org)

Frequency rank visualization

curriculum vitae is not present in the top-100,000 ranked English corpus, typical for technical, archaic, or low-frequency vocabulary.

Source: Wordfreq corpus

Spelling & Dictionary Insight

The English entry for curriculum vitae is 16 letters long, classified as anoun, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /kəˈɹɪkjələm ˈviːteɪ/. It sits outside the most-frequent rank tiers, which is often why uncommon words generate more spelling variants per reader.Wiktionary records 2 distinct senses for this headword, so context determines which meaning a reader should apply.

No frequent misspelling variants are recorded for curriculum vitae in our index, suggesting the orthography either follows predictable English patterns or the word is uncommon enough that typo corpora lack signal.It is not paired with a close-neighbour confusable in our dataset, which tends to mean the word is visually distinctive enough to stand on its own.

Etymologically, the entry records: From Latin curriculum (“course”) + vītae, genitive of vīta (“life”). 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 curriculum vitae, spelled C-U-R-R-I-C-U-L-U-M- -V-I-T-A-E, and any other sequence of those letters, regardless of how natural it feels, is a misspelling in standard orthography.

Definition

  1. 1
    A written account of one's life comprising one's education, accomplishments, work experience, publications, etc.; especially, one used to apply for a job.
  2. 2
    A detailed written account of one's education and experience used to seek positions in academic or educational environments, typically including academic credentials, publications, courses taught, etc.

Etymology

From Latin curriculum (“course”) + vītae, genitive of vīta (“life”).

This word in other languages

Frequently Asked Questions

How do you spell "curriculum vitae"?
"curriculum vitae" is spelled C-U-R-R-I-C-U-L-U-M- -V-I-T-A-E. The IPA pronunciation is /kəˈɹɪkjələm ˈviːteɪ/.
What does "curriculum vitae" mean?
As a noun, "curriculum vitae" means: A written account of one's life comprising one's education, accomplishments, work experience, publications, etc.; especially, one used to apply for a job.
How do you pronounce "curriculum vitae"?
The IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) transcription for "curriculum vitae" is /kəˈɹɪkjələm ˈviːteɪ/. Click the speaker icon on the pronunciation badge above to hear it spoken aloud where audio is available.
What is the origin of the word "curriculum vitae"?
From Latin curriculum (“course”) + vītae, genitive of vīta (“life”). See the full etymology section above for more details.
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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.

Nearby English words

Other entries that begin with the letter C in our English index:

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Data Source: Wiktionary (via kaikki.org), licensed under CC BY-SA & GFDL. Frequency data from Wordfreq. Misspellings derived from Hunspell dictionaries.