serval
/ˈsɜːvəl/
"serval" is a 6-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“serval” is uncommon English (frequency #90,968 among 6,566 “S” headwords), classed as a noun. The kind of spelling people second-guess.
- #90,968
- frequency rank, English
- 6,566
- “S” headwords
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - A medium-sized African wild cat, Leptailurus serval, formerly Felis serval.
Corpus desk
Index EN-serval · serval · English
serval · rank #90,968 · 0 variants · 0 confusables
- FREQ-RARE #90,968
- LEN-LONG 6 letters
- VOW-2 2 vowels
- CONFUS-0 No pairs
- VAR-0 0 variants
- BOOK-DENSE 6,566
- PHOTO-FINISH servlet
Nearest frequency peer: servlet (+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.
Long-tail ranks near “serval”
Sparse band: bars invert rank so rarer forms read shorter
- seiner
seiner
9,039 corpus weight
- Sellafield
Sellafield
9,038 corpus weight
- Seroquel
Seroquel
9,035 corpus weight
- serval
serval
9,033 corpus weight
- servlet
servlet
9,032 corpus weight
- sexologist
sexologist
9,029 corpus weight
What this shows Long-tail view: where “serval” sits against similarly uncommon English ranks.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | serval |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | /ˈsɜːvəl/ |
| Letters | 6 |
| Frequency rank | #90,968 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Long-tail rank of “serval” in English
Rare enough to double-check
serval is uncommon English at frequency #90,968 among 6,566 “S” headwords, classed as anoun, transcribed /ˈsɜːvəl/. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. Gloss: "A medium-sized African wild cat, Leptailurus serval, formerly Felis serval.".
No generated misspelling entries exist for serval in our index, since its letter pattern doesn't lend itself to common typo substitutions. Our confusable-pair dataset has no match for it, which typically means the spelling is too distinctive to be mistaken for another word.
Etymologically, the entry records: From French serval, from Portuguese (lobo) cerval (“Iberian lynx”), from Latin lupus cervārius (literally “stag wolf”), i.e. "wolf that hunts stags", from cervus (“deer, stag”). The correct English form is serval, spelled S-E-R-V-A-L.
Definition
- 1A medium-sized African wild cat, Leptailurus serval, formerly Felis serval.
Etymology
From French serval, from Portuguese (lobo) cerval (“Iberian lynx”), from Latin lupus cervārius (literally “stag wolf”), i.e. "wolf that hunts stags", from cervus (“deer, stag”).
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 "serval", not the corpus desk frequency band.
Same letter count
Frequency-ranked English headwords with 6 letters (nearest by frequency rank).