chamois
/ˈʃæmwɑː/
"chamois" is a 7-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“chamois” is an uncommon English word, ranked #54,682 in English word frequency and used as a noun.
- #54,682
- frequency rank, English
- 7
- letters
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - A short-horned goat antelope native to mountainous terrain in southern Europe; Rupicapra rupicapra.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | chamois |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | /ˈʃæmwɑː/ |
| Letters | 7 |
| Frequency rank | #54,682 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “chamois” sits in English frequency
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for chamois is 7 letters long, classified as a noun, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /ˈʃæmwɑː/. Corpus data places it at rank #54,682 in overall English word frequency, marking it as uncommon enough that many writers pause before typing it. Wiktionary records 5 distinct senses for this headword, so context determines which meaning a reader should apply.
No generated misspelling entries exist for chamois in our index, which points to an orthography that plays by predictable English rules. No close-neighbour confusable shows up for this headword in our dataset, suggesting its spelling stands apart enough that readers rarely confuse it with something else.
Etymologically, the entry records: Borrowed from Middle French chamois, from Late Latin camox, from Gaulish camox (5th c. AD, Polemius Silvius), probably from an extinct Alpine language (Raetic, Ancient Ligurian), possibly Proto-Indo-European *kem- (“without horns”). Compare also Old High Ge… The correct English form is chamois, spelled C-H-A-M-O-I-S.
Definition
- 1A short-horned goat antelope native to mountainous terrain in southern Europe; Rupicapra rupicapra.
- 2Ellipsis of chamois leather (“soft pliable leather originally made from the skin of chamois (nowadays the hides of deer, sheep, and other species of goat are alternatively used)”).
- 3The traditional colour of chamois leather.
- 4An absorbent cloth used for cleaning and polishing, formerly made of chamois leather.
- 5A padded insert which protects the groin from the bicycle saddle.
Etymology
Borrowed from Middle French chamois, from Late Latin camox, from Gaulish camox (5th c. AD, Polemius Silvius), probably from an extinct Alpine language (Raetic, Ancient Ligurian), possibly Proto-Indo-European *kem- (“without horns”). Compare also Old High German gamiza (“chamois”) (whence modern German Gämse).
This word in other languages
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 English corpus, MIT). See the methodology for how each field is sourced and updated.
Frequently Asked Questions
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Using “chamois”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct English spelling is C-H-A-M-O-I-S - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
- Say it as /ˈʃæmwɑː/ (IPA); tap the speaker on the pronunciation badge to hear it where audio exists.
- Browse more English words and confusable pairs in the same reference. English words
Data Source
Wiktionary (via kaikki.org), licensed under CC BY-SA & GFDL. Word ordering uses an open word-frequency list; misspelling variants are generated by edit-distance from the correct headword.