kestrel
/ˈkɛstɹəl/noun
kestrel is spelled K-E-S-T-R-E-L. The wrong spelling people search most is kestral: about 580 Bing searches a month in the United States (September 2025 to August 2026), about 1 in 10 of all searches for the word. Kestrel is a noun meaning “Any of various small falcons of the genus Falco that hover while hunting”. The plural of kestrel is kestrels.
How do you spell kestrel?
Kestrel is spelled K-E-S-T-R-E-L. One wrong spelling is searched or written often enough to measure; together they are about 1 in 10 of the searches for kestrel in either form.
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 kestrel mean?
noun
- 1
Any of various small falcons of the genus Falco that hover while hunting.
- 2
A common kestrel (Falco tinnunculus).
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
How do you pronounce kestrel?
- /ˈkɛstɹəl/
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Recordings: LL-Q1860_(eng)-Vininn126-kestrel.wav, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).
Forms of kestrel
- kestrels plural
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
How common is kestrel?
Kestrel appears about once in every 3 million words in written English, the 54,808th 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).
Kestrel in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese
In the sense any small falcon of genus Falco:
| Language | Words |
|---|---|
| French | crécerelle, cristel |
| German | Falke |
| Portuguese | falcão |
| Spanish | cernícalo |
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 kestrel come from?
From Middle English castrel (“staniel, bird of prey”), from Middle French cresserelle, crecerelle (“bird of prey”), usually assumed to be from crecelle (“rattle, wooden reel”) (modern crécelle), of obscure origin.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).