pervious
/ˈpɜː.vɪ.əs/
"pervious" is a 8-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“pervious” is an uncommon English word, ranked #98,561 in English word frequency and used as an adjective.
- #98,561
- frequency rank, English
- 8
- letters
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - Often followed by to: capable of being penetrated by another body or substance, such as air or water; admitting passage.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | pervious |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Adjective |
| IPA | /ˈpɜː.vɪ.əs/ |
| Letters | 8 |
| Frequency rank | #98,561 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “pervious” sits in English frequency
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for pervious is 8 letters long, classified as an adjective, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /ˈpɜː.vɪ.əs/. Corpus data places it at rank #98,561 in overall English word frequency, marking it as uncommon enough that many writers pause before typing it. Wiktionary records 6 distinct senses for this headword, so context determines which meaning a reader should apply.
Our edit-distance generator produced no likely misspellings for pervious, and the word's spelling is regular enough that our generator found nothing worth flagging. No close-neighbour confusable shows up for this headword in our dataset, which tends to mean the word is visually distinctive enough to stand on its own.
Etymologically, the entry records: Borrowed from Latin pervius (“having a passage through; passable, penetrable, traversable”) + English -ous (suffix denoting the presence of a quality in any degree (typically an abundance)). Pervius is derived from per- (prefix denoting doing something all … The correct English form is pervious, spelled P-E-R-V-I-O-U-S.
Definition
- 1Often followed by to: capable of being penetrated by another body or substance, such as air or water; admitting passage.
- 2Capable of being seen through; open to being examined; patent, unconcealed.
- 3Capable of being penetrated mentally; intelligible, understandable.
- 4Of a person, etc.: susceptible to being influenced by arguments, ideas, etc.; impressionable, tractable.
- 5Capable of penetrating or permeating.
- 6Of a body structure (especially the nostril of a bird): having a hole, perforate; also, wide open.
Etymology
Borrowed from Latin pervius (“having a passage through; passable, penetrable, traversable”) + English -ous (suffix denoting the presence of a quality in any degree (typically an abundance)). Pervius is derived from per- (prefix denoting doing something all the way through or entirely) + via (“road, street; method, way; (figurative) course, route”) + -us (suffix forming adjectives)
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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Using “pervious”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct English spelling is P-E-R-V-I-O-U-S - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
- Say it as /ˈpɜː.vɪ.əs/ (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
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.