meerkat
/ˈmɪəkat/
"meerkat" is a 7-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“meerkat” is uncommon English (frequency #53,695 among 4,057 “M” headwords), classed as a noun. The kind of spelling people second-guess.
- #53,695
- frequency rank, English
- 4,057
- “M” headwords
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - Suricata suricatta, a small carnivorous mammal of the mongoose family, from the Kalahari Desert, known for its habit of standing on its hind legs.
Corpus desk
Index EN-meerkat · meerkat · English
meerkat · rank #53,695 · 0 variants · 0 confusables
- FREQ-RARE #53,695
- LEN-LONG 7 letters
- VOW-3 3 vowels
- CONFUS-0 No pairs
- VAR-0 0 variants
- BOOK-MID 4,057
- PHOTO-FINISH medulla
Nearest frequency peer: medulla (-1 rank slots)
Read with this headword: Spelling guide for this pattern
Desk codes from Wiktionary headword shape, FrequencyWords rank tier, confusable-pair count, generated misspelling depth, letter-cohort book size, and photo-finish peer. Not a difficulty grade.
Frequency neighbourhood for “meerkat”
Lower corpus rank = more everyday usage (inverted bar length for readability)
- Meagher
Meagher
46,309 corpus weight
- medico
medico
46,308 corpus weight
- medulla
medulla
46,307 corpus weight
- meerkat
meerkat
46,306 corpus weight
- mesenchymal
mesenchymal
46,305 corpus weight
- Mesopotamian
Mesopotamian
46,304 corpus weight
What this shows Bars show where “meerkat” sits against the nearest ranked English headwords in the FrequencyWords band, not a reprint of letter-browse containment.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | meerkat |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | /ˈmɪəkat/ |
| Letters | 7 |
| Frequency rank | #53,695 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “meerkat” sits in English frequency
Rare enough to double-check
meerkat is uncommon English at frequency #53,695 among 4,057 “M” headwords, classed as anoun, transcribed /ˈmɪəkat/. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. Gloss: "Suricata suricatta, a small carnivorous mammal of the mongoose family, from the Kalahari Desert, known for its habit of standing on its hind legs.".
meerkat doesn't appear in our generated misspelling index, a sign its spelling follows regular English conventions. No confusable counterpart is on file for this word, since its spelling is unusual enough that it doesn't cluster with a lookalike.
Etymologically, the entry records: From Afrikaans meerkat, transferred use of Dutch meerkat (“guenon [monkey]”), from Middle Dutch meercatte (literally “sea cat”), compare English mercat. Sometimes suggested to be influenced by or derived from an Indian source; compare Hindi मर्कट (markaṭ, “… The correct English form is meerkat, spelled M-E-E-R-K-A-T.
Definition
- 1Suricata suricatta, a small carnivorous mammal of the mongoose family, from the Kalahari Desert, known for its habit of standing on its hind legs.
Etymology
From Afrikaans meerkat, transferred use of Dutch meerkat (“guenon [monkey]”), from Middle Dutch meercatte (literally “sea cat”), compare English mercat. Sometimes suggested to be influenced by or derived from an Indian source; compare Hindi मर्कट (markaṭ, “ape, monkey”) and Sanskrit मर्कट (markaṭa). Note however Old High German merikazza, so any influence from Indo-Aryan would have to be exceptionally early.
This word in other languages
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
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Similar English words by spelling shape
Same letter count and similar misspelling depth for "meerkat", not the corpus desk frequency band.
Same letter count
Frequency-ranked English headwords with 7 letters (nearest by frequency rank).
What to do next
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- Usage frequency rank #53,695 among English headwords in this corpus. Corpus statistics
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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.