sport utility vehicle

noun

"sport-utility-vehicle" is a 19-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.

The verdict

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

Unranked
below top-frequency English
21
letters

According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - A passenger vehicle which combines the towing capacity of a pickup truck with the passenger-carrying space of a minivan or station wagon together with on- or off-road ability.

Corpus desk

Index EN-sport-utility-vehicle · sport utility vehicle · English

sport utility vehicle · unranked · 0 variants · 0 confusables

  • FREQ-UNRANKED Unranked
  • LEN-MEGA 21 letters
  • VOW-8 8 vowels
  • CONFUS-0 No pairs
  • VAR-0 0 variants
  • BOOK-THIN "S" thin
  • PHOTO-UNK Peer pending

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.

Key facts for sport utility vehicle
PropertyValue
Headwordsport utility vehicle
LanguageEnglish
Part of speechNoun
Letters21
Misspellings tracked0
Confusable pairs0
SourceWiktionary (kaikki.org)

Long-tail rank of “sport utility vehicle” in English

sport utility vehiclesits beyond the 100,000 most-frequent English words, in the long tail of technical, archaic, or otherwise rare vocabulary where spelling doubt tends to strike hardest.

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

Rare enough to double-check

sport utility vehicle is uncommon English outside the top frequency list, classed as anoun. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. Gloss: "A passenger vehicle which combines the towing capacity of a pickup truck with the passenger-carrying space of a minivan or station wagon together with on- or off-road ability.".

No generated misspelling entries exist for sport utility vehicle in our index, a straightforward case of a spelling with little room for common typos. This headword has no recorded confusable partner, since no other headword is close enough in sound or shape to pair with it.

Etymologically, the entry records: Extant since the 1970s in the technical usage of the auto industry, where at the time it sometimes included a virgule as sport/utility vehicle; in common use among the general public since the early 1990s, when this class of vehicles first became widely pop… The correct English form is sport utility vehicle, spelled S-P-O-R-T- -U-T-I-L-I-T-Y- -V-E-H-I-C-L-E.

Definition

  1. 1
    A passenger vehicle which combines the towing capacity of a pickup truck with the passenger-carrying space of a minivan or station wagon together with on- or off-road ability.

Etymology

Extant since the 1970s in the technical usage of the auto industry, where at the time it sometimes included a virgule as sport/utility vehicle; in common use among the general public since the early 1990s, when this class of vehicles first became widely popular as an alternative to station wagons and minivans.

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). See the methodology for how each field is sourced and updated.

Frequently Asked Questions

How do you spell "sport utility vehicle"?
"sport utility vehicle" is spelled S-P-O-R-T- -U-T-I-L-I-T-Y- -V-E-H-I-C-L-E.
What does "sport utility vehicle" mean?
As a noun, "sport utility vehicle" means: A passenger vehicle which combines the towing capacity of a pickup truck with the passenger-carrying space of a minivan or station wagon together with on- or off-road ability.
What is the origin of the word "sport utility vehicle"?
Extant since the 1970s in the technical usage of the auto industry, where at the time it sometimes included a virgule as sport/utility vehicle; in common use among the general public since the early 1990s, when this class of vehicles first became ... See the full etymology section above for more details.
Is PlainSpell free to use?
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Source: Wiktionary (via kaikki.org) Structured Wiktionary extract

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list