veterinarian
vet·er·i·nar·i·an/ˌvɛt(ə)ɹəˈnɛɹ.i.ən/noun, adjective
veterinarian is spelled V-E-T-E-R-I-N-A-R-I-A-N, 6 syllables: vet·er·i·nar·i·an. The wrong spelling people search most is vetinarian: about 270 Bing searches a month in the United States (September 2025 to August 2026), about 1 in 34 of all searches for the word. Veterinarian is a noun meaning “A medical doctor who treats non-human animals”. The plural of veterinarian is veterinarians.
How do you spell veterinarian?
Veterinarian is spelled V-E-T-E-R-I-N-A-R-I-A-N. One wrong spelling is searched or written often enough to measure; together they are about 1 in 35 of the searches for veterinarian in either form.
Bing searches in the United States: the average month from September 2025 to August 2026 (Microsoft Advertising keyword data through DataForSEO, read September 30, 2026). Wrong spellings are taken from Wiktionary entries tagged "misspelling" and its obsolete or nonstandard forms, Wikipedia's Lists of common misspellings and the codespell dictionary, then measured. The proofreader's marks show the change that corrects each one.
What does veterinarian mean?
noun
- 1
A medical doctor who treats non-human animals.
adjective
- 1
veterinary
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
How do you pronounce veterinarian?
- US /ˌvɛt(ə)ɹəˈnɛɹ.i.ən/
- US /ˌvɛtʃ.ɹɪnˈɛɹ.i.ən/
- US /ˌvɛʔ.n̩ˈɛɹ.i.ən/
Veterinarian has 6 syllables, split vet·er·i·nar·i·an in writing.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Recordings: En-us-veterinarian.ogg, En_US-veterinarian.ogg, LL-Q1860_(eng)-Vealhurl-veterinarian.wav, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).
Forms of veterinarian
- veterinarians plural
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
How common is veterinarian?
Veterinarian appears 1.5 times per million words in written English, the 22,651st most frequent word form in the list.
Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).
Veterinarian in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese
In the sense doctor who treats animals:
| Language | Words |
|---|---|
| French | vétérinaire, véto |
| German | Tierarzt, Tierärztin, Tiermediziner, Tiermedizinerin, Veterinär, Veterinärin |
| Portuguese | veterinário, veterinária |
| Spanish | veterinario, veterinaria |
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Translations are Wiktionary's, by sense; a linked word has its own PlainSpell page.
Where does veterinarian come from?
From Latin veterīnārius (“cattle doctor”) + -an, from veterīnae (“beasts of burden, draught-”), probably from vehō (“to convey, draw”), or from vetus (“old”). By surface analysis, veterinary + -an.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).