sergeant
Definition, pronunciation, etymology, and usage for the English word. Free spelling reference powered by Wiktionary.
Letters
8 characters
Language
English
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Detailed reference entry for the English word "sergeant", 8-letters, with pronunciation in International Phonetic Alphabet notation, etymology traced through Germanic and Romance roots where applicable, common misspelling variants catalogued from Hunspell error dictionaries, and usage frequency ranked against the top 100,000 English words in the Wordfreq corpus. PlainSpell covers English, Spanish, Portuguese, French, and German spelling with confusable-pair detection that highlights visually and phonetically similar words. This entry for "sergeant" 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 "sergeant" for academic writing, checking homophone confusion, or exploring etymological origins, this page provides a citation-backed, free reference that requires no sign-up.
sergeant is aEnglishnoun. It means: A UK army rank with NATO code OR-6, senior to corporal and junior to warrant officer ranks. Pronounced /ˈsɑː.d͡ʒənt/. It ranks #6,010 in English word frequency. Often confused with servant and serpent.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | sergeant |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | /ˈsɑː.d͡ʒənt/ |
| Letters | 8 |
| Frequency rank | #6,010 |
| Misspellings tracked | 12 |
| Confusable pairs | 3 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Frequency rank visualization
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for sergeant is 8 letters long, classified as anoun, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /ˈsɑː.d͡ʒənt/. Corpus data places it at rank #6,010 in overall English word frequency, indicating it appears regularly in written and spoken text.Wiktionary records 8 distinct senses for this headword, so context determines which meaning a reader should apply.
Our Hunspell-derived misspelling index lists 12 documented wrong-spelling variants for sergeant, with forms such as "esrgeant", "segreant", and "seregant". Each variant represents a distinct typo pattern that appears often enough in corpora to be worth flagging, typically a doubled-consonant error, a silent-letter drop, or a vowel substitution.It also participates in 3 confusable-pair relationships, "servant", "serpent", "Sargent", where similar look or sound leads writers to substitute one word for another in context.
Etymologically, the entry records: From Middle English sergeant, sergeaunt, serjent, serjaunt, serjawnt, sergant, from Old French sergeant, sergent, serjant, sergient, sergant (“sergeant, servant”), from Medieval Latin servientem, accusative of serviēns (“a servant, vassal, soldier, apparito… 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 sergeant, spelled S-E-R-G-E-A-N-T, and any other sequence of those letters, regardless of how natural it feels, is a misspelling in standard orthography.
Definition
- 1A UK army rank with NATO code OR-6, senior to corporal and junior to warrant officer ranks.
- 2The highest rank of noncommissioned officer in some non-naval military forces and police.
- 3A lawyer of the highest rank, equivalent to the doctor of civil law.
- 4A title sometimes given to the servants of the sovereign.
- 5A bailiff.
- 6A servant in monastic offices.
- 7A fish, the píntano (Abudefduf saxatilis), a species of damselfish.
- 8Any of various nymphalid butterflies of the genus Athyma; distinct from the false sergeants.
Etymology
From Middle English sergeant, sergeaunt, serjent, serjaunt, serjawnt, sergant, from Old French sergeant, sergent, serjant, sergient, sergant (“sergeant, servant”), from Medieval Latin servientem, accusative of serviēns (“a servant, vassal, soldier, apparitor”), from Latin serviēns (“serving”), present participle of serviō (“serve, be a slave to”). Doublet of servant and servient. The shift from /vj/ > /dʒ/ was a regular development in Old French. Compare cavea > cage, salvia > sage. The fish is so called because of its stripes, supposed to resemble a sergeant's insignia of rank. The pronunciation with /ɑɹ/ is due to a widespread development of Middle English er + consonant (see barn, start etc.). In sergeant, the spelling was standardised in one way, the pronunciation in another (compare clerk, derby in Commonwealth English, further parson vs. person, and varsity vs. university).
This word in other languages
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as: esrgeant,segreant,seregant,sergaent,sergeannt,sergeantt,sergeatn,sergenat,serggeant,serrgeant,sregeant,ssergeant
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
Relative frequency of common misspelling types for sergeant
Misspelling Variants of "sergeant"
Frequency rank: #6,010 in English
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Nearby English words
Other entries that begin with the letter S in our English index: