serpent

/\sɛʁ.pɑ̃\/ noun

Letters

7 characters

Frequency Rank

#6,554

in French word usage

Misspellings

11

tracked variants

Confusables

18

similar word pairs

serpent is aFrenchnoun. It means: Reptile apode de l’ordre des squamates, au corps très allongé et cylindrique. Pronounced \sɛʁ.pɑ̃\. It ranks #6,554 in French word frequency. Often confused with servent and sortent.

Key facts for serpent
PropertyValue
Headwordserpent
LanguageFrench
Part of speechNoun
IPA\sɛʁ.pɑ̃\
Letters7
Frequency rank#6,554
Misspellings tracked11
Confusable pairs18
SourceWiktionary (kaikki.org)

Frequency rank visualization

Position of serpent in French word frequency (lower rank = more common)

Source: Wordfreq corpus

Spelling & Dictionary Insight

The French entry for serpent is 7 letters long, classified as anoun, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as \sɛʁ.pɑ̃\. Corpus data places it at rank #6,554 in overall French 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 11 documented wrong-spelling variants for serpent, with forms such as "esrpent", "seprent", and "serepnt". 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 18 confusable-pair relationships, "servent", "sortent", "servant", and more, where similar look or sound leads writers to substitute one word for another in context.

No explicit etymology string is stored for this entry, so spelling patterns must be inferred from the word's phoneme-to-grapheme mapping rather than from a documented borrowing chain. For readers arriving here from a spelling check, the authoritative guidance is: the correct French form is serpent, spelled S-E-R-P-E-N-T, and any other sequence of those letters, regardless of how natural it feels, is a misspelling in standard orthography.

Definition

  1. 1
    Reptile apode de l’ordre des squamates, au corps très allongé et cylindrique.
  2. 2
    Symbole du mal et de la Chute; symbole de la tentation mensongère et néfaste.
  3. 3
    Peau de cet animal.
  4. 4
    Instrument de musique à vent, de forme serpentine, employé dans les églises pour soutenir les voix.
  5. 5
    Celui qui joue de cet instrument.
  6. 6
    Sergent de police.
  7. 7
    Meuble représentant l’animal du même nom dans les armoiries. Il est utilisé quand il n’y a pas d’identification possible de l’espèce. Il peut être représenté de différentes façons, seul ou enserrant d’autres meubles (fût de colonne ou de flèche, miroir…). S’il dévore un animal ou être humain, il est appelé guivre. À rapprocher de bisse et couleuvre.
  8. 8
    Traître, félon.

This word in other languages

Common misspellings

Also misspelled as: esrpent,seprent,serepnt,serpennt,serpentt,serpetn,serpnet,serppent,serrpent,srepent,sserpent

Misspelling Pattern Breakdown

Relative frequency of common misspelling types for serpent

Misspelling Variants of "serpent"

esrpent7seprent7serepnt7serpennt8serpentt8serpetn7serpnet7serppent8
Misspelling Variants of "serpent"

Frequency rank: #6,554 in French

Frequently Asked Questions

How do you spell "serpent"?
"serpent" is spelled S-E-R-P-E-N-T. The IPA pronunciation is \sɛʁ.pɑ̃\.
What does "serpent" mean?
As a noun, "serpent" means: Reptile apode de l’ordre des squamates, au corps très allongé et cylindrique.
What words are commonly confused with "serpent"?
"serpent" is commonly confused with "servent", "sortent", "servant". These words look or sound similar but have different meanings. PlainSpell provides detailed comparisons for each pair.
How do you pronounce "serpent"?
The IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) transcription for "serpent" is \sɛʁ.pɑ̃\. Click the speaker icon on the pronunciation badge above to hear it spoken aloud where audio is available.
What language does "serpent" come from?
"serpent" is a French word. PlainSpell covers definitions, pronunciations, and spelling data across English, Spanish, Portuguese, French, and German.
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.

Nearby French words

Other entries that begin with the letter S in our French index:

Explore PlainSpell

Data Source: Wiktionary (via kaikki.org), licensed under CC BY-SA & GFDL. Frequency data from Wordfreq. Misspellings derived from Hunspell dictionaries.