passerine
Definition, pronunciation, etymology, and usage for the English word. Free spelling reference powered by Wiktionary.
Detailed reference entry for the English word "passerine", 9-letters, with pronunciation in International Phonetic Alphabet notation, etymology traced through Germanic and Romance roots where applicable, common misspelling variants catalogued from Wiktionary, and usage frequency ranked against an open word-frequency list covering the top 100,000 English words. PlainSpell covers English, Spanish, Portuguese, French, and German spelling with confusable-pair detection that highlights visually and phonetically similar words. This entry for "passerine" 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 "passerine" for academic writing, checking homophone confusion, or exploring etymological origins, this page provides a citation-backed, free reference that requires no sign-up.
The verdict
“passerine” is outside the top-ranked English vocabulary, used as an adjective — the kind of word writers most often double-check.
- Unranked
- below top-frequency English
- 9
- letters
Dominant Wiktionary sense: Of or relating to the Passeriformes order of perching birds, which are generally anisodactyl (“having three toes pointing forward and one back, which facilitates perching”).
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See how passerine compares against similar English words.
Browse all word comparisons →| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | passerine |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Adjective |
| IPA | /ˈpæsəɹaɪn/ |
| Letters | 9 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “passerine” sits in English frequency
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for passerine is 9 letters long, classified as an adjective, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /ˈpæsəɹaɪn/. 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 misspelling variants are generated for passerine in our index, suggesting the orthography follows predictable English patterns. 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: Adjective adjective sense 1 is borrowed from New Latin Passer (“bird genus”) (from Latin passer (“sparrow”), ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *peth₂- (“to spread out; to fly (in the sense of spreading out wings)”)) + English -ine (suffix meaning ‘of or p… 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 passerine, spelled P-A-S-S-E-R-I-N-E, and any other sequence of those letters, regardless of how natural it feels, is a misspelling in standard orthography.
Definition
- 1Of or relating to the Passeriformes order of perching birds, which are generally anisodactyl (“having three toes pointing forward and one back, which facilitates perching”).
- 2Chiefly in the former names of some birds: approximately the size of a sparrow.
Etymology
Adjective adjective sense 1 is borrowed from New Latin Passer (“bird genus”) (from Latin passer (“sparrow”), ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *peth₂- (“to spread out; to fly (in the sense of spreading out wings)”)) + English -ine (suffix meaning ‘of or pertaining to’). Adjective adjective sense 2 is borrowed from New Latin passerinus (“bird species”) + English -ine. Passerinus is derived from Latin passerīnus (“of or fit for sparrows”), from passer (“sparrow”) (see above) + -īnus (suffix meaning ‘of or pertaining to’). The noun is borrowed from New Latin Passerinae (“former order of birds”), a calque of French passereaux, the plural of passereau (“sparrow; passerine (bird of the order Passeriformes)”), from Latin passer (“sparrow”) (see above) + -eau (suffix forming diminutive masculine nouns, specifically the names of young animals). Cognates * French passerin (“sparrowlike”) (obsolete), Provençal French passerine (“passerine whitethroat, a bird from order Passeriformes”)
Frequently Asked Questions
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Using “passerine”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct English spelling is P-A-S-S-E-R-I-N-E — every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
- Say it as /ˈpæsəɹaɪn/ (IPA); tap the speaker on the pronunciation badge to hear it where audio exists.
- Browse more English words and confusable pairs in the same reference. English words
Nearby English words
Other entries that begin with the letter P in our English index: