petrel

Other forms of petrel

plural

petrels·

Forms marked · are formed by the regular rule rather than recorded in the source data. English keeps a few hundred irregulars and the rest follow the pattern, so the rule is right far more often than not — but it is a rule, and the mark says so.

Questions about petrel

What does petrel mean?

petrel means "relatively small long-winged tube-nosed bird that flies far from land".

How many syllables are in petrel?

petrel has 2 syllables and divides as pe-trel under the regular spelling rules. It is not in the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary, so that comes from how the word is written rather than from a recorded pronunciation, and no stress or phonetic transcription is claimed for it.

Is petrel a common word?

petrel is banded "Rare" — specialist or archaic — most readers will not have met it. The band comes from how often the word appears in a large corpus of everyday English, not from an editor's impression.