seafowl

noun

"seafowl" is a 7-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.

The verdict

“seafowl” is uncommon English (outside the top frequency list), classed as a noun. The kind of spelling people second-guess.

Unranked
below top-frequency English
7
letters

According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - Any bird that spends most of its time in coastal waters or over the oceans.

Key facts for seafowl
PropertyValue
Headwordseafowl
LanguageEnglish
Part of speechNoun
Letters7
Misspellings tracked0
Confusable pairs0
SourceWiktionary (kaikki.org)

Where “seafowl” sits in English frequency

seafowl falls outside the top-100,000 ranked English words, the long-tail zone of technical, archaic, or low-frequency vocabulary, exactly where readers second-guess spellings most.

Beyond rank #100,000. Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list.

Rare enough to double-check

seafowl is uncommon English outside the top frequency list, classed as anoun. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. Gloss: "Any bird that spends most of its time in coastal waters or over the oceans.".

Our edit-distance generator produced no likely misspellings for seafowl, since its letter pattern doesn't lend itself to common typo substitutions. Our dataset records no confusable match here, a sign it's visually distinctive enough not to be mixed up with another word.

Etymologically, the entry records: From Middle English sefoul, from Old English sǣfugol (“seabird”), equivalent to sea + fowl. Cognate with Dutch zeevogel, German Seevogel, Swedish sjöfågel, Icelandic sjófugl. The correct English form is seafowl, spelled S-E-A-F-O-W-L.

Definition

  1. 1
    Any bird that spends most of its time in coastal waters or over the oceans.

Etymology

From Middle English sefoul, from Old English sǣfugol (“seabird”), equivalent to sea + fowl. Cognate with Dutch zeevogel, German Seevogel, Swedish sjöfågel, Icelandic sjófugl.

Synonyms

Definitions, pronunciation, and etymology for this entry are drawn from Wiktionary via the kaikki.org structured extract (CC BY-SA). See the methodology for how each field is sourced and updated.

Frequently Asked Questions

How do you spell "seafowl"?
"seafowl" is spelled S-E-A-F-O-W-L.
What does "seafowl" mean?
As a noun, "seafowl" means: Any bird that spends most of its time in coastal waters or over the oceans.
What is the origin of the word "seafowl"?
From Middle English sefoul, from Old English sǣfugol (“seabird”), equivalent to sea + fowl. Cognate with Dutch zeevogel, German Seevogel, Swedish sjöfågel, Icelandic sjófugl. See the full etymology section above for more details.
Is PlainSpell free to use?
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.

Using “seafowl”

The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.

  • The one correct English spelling is S-E-A-F-O-W-L - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
  • 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.

Source: Wiktionary (via kaikki.org) Structured Wiktionary extract

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list