cercear

verb

The verdict

“cercear” is uncommon Portuguese (frequency #68,687 among 2,140 “C” headwords), classed as a verb. The kind of spelling people second-guess.

#68,687
frequency rank, Portuguese
2,140
“C” headwords

According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - cortar pela raiz

Corpus desk

Index PT-cercear · cercear · Portuguese

cercear · rank #68,687 · 0 variants · 0 confusables

  • FREQ-RARE #68,687
  • LEN-LONG 7 letters
  • VOW-3 3 vowels
  • CONFUS-0 No pairs
  • VAR-0 0 variants
  • BOOK-MID 2,140
  • PHOTO-FINISH clivagem

Nearest frequency peer: clivagem (+10 rank slots)

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.

Ranks da cauda longa perto de “cercear”

Faixa escassa: as barras invertem o rank para o raro ler-se mais curto

corpus weight

What this shows Vista da cauda longa: onde “cercear” se situa face a ranks portugueses igualmente raros.

Source FrequencyWords open word-frequency list As of September 3, 2026
Key facts for cercear
PropertyValue
Headwordcercear
LanguagePortuguese
Part of speechVerb
Letters7
Frequency rank#68,687
Misspellings tracked0
Confusable pairs0
SourceWiktionary (kaikki.org)

Cauda longa: rank de “cercear” em português

Esta escala corre do núcleo do português quotidiano (esquerda) até o rastro de formas raras (direita).cercearcai nesta cauda de raridade:

#1#100#1K#10K#100K
← used constantlyrarely used →

Os ticks avançam em logaritmo; cada um é da ordem de dez vezes mais raro. Vizinhos raros da mesma faixa: “clivagem” (#68,697), “confinar” (#68,711), “consider” (#68,713). Entre 2,140 lemas com “C”, “cercear” fica em #68,687. Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list.

Rare enough to double-check

cercear is uncommon Portuguese at frequency #68,687 among 2,140 “C” headwords, classed as averb. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. Gloss: "cortar pela raiz".

cercear doesn't appear in our generated misspelling index, a sign its spelling follows regular Portuguese conventions. Our confusable-pair dataset has no match for it, which usually means its spelling is distinct enough that readers don't reach for a similar-looking word instead.

This entry's etymology isn't recorded, so spelling patterns must be inferred from the word's phoneme-to-grapheme mapping rather than from a documented borrowing chain. The correct Portuguese form is cercear, spelled C-E-R-C-E-A-R.

Definition

  1. 1
    cortar pela raiz

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 Portuguese corpus, MIT). See the methodology for how each field is sourced and updated.

Frequently Asked Questions

How do you spell "cercear"?
"cercear" is spelled C-E-R-C-E-A-R.
What does "cercear" mean?
As a verb, "cercear" means: cortar pela raiz
What language does "cercear" come from?
"cercear" is a Portuguese word. PlainSpell's reference spans five languages -- English, Spanish, Portuguese, French, and German -- with definitions, pronunciations, and spelling data for each.
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.

Similar Portuguese words by spelling shape

Same letter count and similar misspelling depth for "cercear", not the corpus desk frequency band.

Same letter count

Frequency-ranked Portuguese headwords with 7 letters (nearest by frequency rank).

Source: Wiktionary (via kaikki.org) Structured Wiktionary extract

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list