chain
Definition, pronunciation, etymology, and usage for the English word. Free spelling reference powered by Wiktionary.
Letters
5 characters
Language
English
word origin
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Detailed reference entry for the English word "chain", 5-letters, with pronunciation in International Phonetic Alphabet notation, etymology traced through Germanic and Romance roots where applicable, common misspelling variants catalogued from Hunspell error dictionaries, and usage frequency ranked against the top 100,000 English words in the Wordfreq corpus. PlainSpell covers English, Spanish, Portuguese, French, and German spelling with confusable-pair detection that highlights visually and phonetically similar words. This entry for "chain" includes synonyms, antonyms, homophones, and cross-language translation pointers sourced from Wiktionary via the kaikki.org extract. Whether you are verifying the correct spelling of "chain" for academic writing, checking homophone confusion, or exploring etymological origins, this page provides a citation-backed, free reference that requires no sign-up.
chain is aEnglishnoun. It means: A series of interconnected rings or links usually made of metal. Pronounced /ˈt͡ʃeɪn/. It ranks #2,244 in English word frequency. Often confused with chi and chat.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | chain |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | /ˈt͡ʃeɪn/ |
| Letters | 5 |
| Frequency rank | #2,244 |
| Misspellings tracked | 6 |
| Confusable pairs | 20 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Frequency rank visualization
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for chain is 5 letters long, classified as anoun, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /ˈt͡ʃeɪn/. Corpus data places it at rank #2,244 in overall English word frequency, indicating it appears regularly in written and spoken text.Wiktionary records 15 distinct senses for this headword, so context determines which meaning a reader should apply.
Our Hunspell-derived misspelling index lists 6 documented wrong-spelling variants for chain, with forms such as "cahin", "cchain", and "chainn". 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, "chi", "chat", "chip", and more, where similar look or sound leads writers to substitute one word for another in context.
Etymologically, the entry records: From Middle English cheyne, chaine, from Old French chaine, chaene (“chain”), from Latin catēna (“chain”), from Proto-Indo-European *kat- (“to braid, twist; hut, shed”). Doublet of catena. Displaced native Middle English rakil and rakent (from Old English r… Root origin matters for spelling because borrowed morphemes (Greek, Latin, Old French, Old English) carry their source-language orthographic conventions into modern English, which is why historical etymology is often the cleanest predictor of whether a cluster like "-ough", "-eau", or "-tion" will appear. For readers arriving here from a spelling check, the authoritative guidance is: the correct English form is chain, spelled C-H-A-I-N, and any other sequence of those letters, regardless of how natural it feels, is a misspelling in standard orthography.
Definition
- 1A series of interconnected rings or links usually made of metal.
- 2A series of interconnected things.
- 3A series of stores or businesses with the same brand name.
- 4A number of atoms in a series, which combine to form a molecule.
- 5A series of interconnected links of known length, used as a measuring device.
- 6A long measuring tape.
- 7A unit of length, exactly equal to 22 yards, which is 4 rods or 100 links, and approximately equal to 20.12 metres; the length of a Gunter's surveying chain; the length of a cricket pitch.
- 8A totally ordered set, especially a totally ordered subset of a poset.
- 9A formal sum of cells in a CW complex of a certain dimension k (in which case the formal sums are called k'''-chains); a formal sum of simplices or cubes of a certain dimension in a simplical complex or cubical complex (respectively).
- 10An element of a group (or module) in a chain complex.
- 11A sequence of linked house purchases, each of which is dependent on the preceding and succeeding purchase (said to be "broken" if a buyer or seller pulls out).
- 12That which confines, fetters, or secures; a bond.
- 13Iron links bolted to the side of a vessel to bold the dead-eyes connected with the shrouds; also, the channels.
- 14A livery collar, a chain of office.
- 15The warp threads of a web.
Etymology
From Middle English cheyne, chaine, from Old French chaine, chaene (“chain”), from Latin catēna (“chain”), from Proto-Indo-European *kat- (“to braid, twist; hut, shed”). Doublet of catena. Displaced native Middle English rakil and rakent (from Old English racente (“chain”)); see rackan.
Synonyms
This word in other languages
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as: cahin,cchain,chainn,chani,chhain,hcain
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
Relative frequency of common misspelling types for chain
Misspelling Variants of "chain"
Frequency rank: #2,244 in English
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Nearby English words
Other entries that begin with the letter C in our English index: