serve

/\sɛʁv\/ noun

Letters

5 characters

Frequency Rank

#14,566

in French word usage

Misspellings

7

tracked variants

Confusables

20

similar word pairs

serve is aFrenchnoun. It means: Femme attachée au domaine qu’elle cultive moyennant redevance au seigneur qui en est le propriétaire. Pronounced \sɛʁv\. Often confused with sexe and sure.

Key facts for serve
PropertyValue
Headwordserve
LanguageFrench
Part of speechNoun
IPA\sɛʁv\
Letters5
Frequency rank#14,566
Misspellings tracked7
Confusable pairs20
SourceWiktionary (kaikki.org)

Frequency rank visualization

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

Source: Wordfreq corpus

Spelling & Dictionary Insight

The French entry for serve is 5 letters long, classified as anoun, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as \sɛʁv\. Corpus data places it at rank #14,566 in overall French word frequency, marking it as uncommon enough that many writers pause before typing it.The dominant gloss from Wiktionary reads: "Femme attachée au domaine qu’elle cultive moyennant redevance au seigneur qui en est le propriétaire.".

Our Hunspell-derived misspelling index lists 7 documented wrong-spelling variants for serve, with forms such as "esrve", "serev", and "serrve". 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 20 confusable-pair relationships, "sexe", "sure", "sire", 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 serve, spelled S-E-R-V-E, and any other sequence of those letters, regardless of how natural it feels, is a misspelling in standard orthography.

Definition

  1. 1
    Femme attachée au domaine qu’elle cultive moyennant redevance au seigneur qui en est le propriétaire.

Common misspellings

Also misspelled as: esrve,serev,serrve,servve,sevre,sreve,sserve

Misspelling Pattern Breakdown

Relative frequency of common misspelling types for serve

Misspelling Variants of "serve"

esrve5serev5serrve6servve6sevre5sreve5sserve6
Misspelling Variants of "serve"

Frequency rank: #14,566 in French

Frequently Asked Questions

How do you spell "serve"?
"serve" is spelled S-E-R-V-E. The IPA pronunciation is \sɛʁv\.
What does "serve" mean?
As a noun, "serve" means: Femme attachée au domaine qu’elle cultive moyennant redevance au seigneur qui en est le propriétaire.
What words are commonly confused with "serve"?
"serve" is commonly confused with "sexe", "sure", "sire". These words look or sound similar but have different meanings. PlainSpell provides detailed comparisons for each pair.
How do you pronounce "serve"?
The IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) transcription for "serve" is \sɛʁv\. Click the speaker icon on the pronunciation badge above to hear it spoken aloud where audio is available.
What language does "serve" come from?
"serve" 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.