channel
Definition, pronunciation, etymology, and usage for the English word. Free spelling reference powered by Wiktionary.
Letters
7 characters
Language
English
word origin
Source
Wiktionary
open dictionary
Access
Free
no sign-up needed
Detailed reference entry for the English word "channel", 7-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 "channel" 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 "channel" for academic writing, checking homophone confusion, or exploring etymological origins, this page provides a citation-backed, free reference that requires no sign-up.
channel is aEnglishnoun. It means: The hollow bed of running waters; (also) the bed of the sea or other body of water. Pronounced /ˈt͡ʃænəl/. It ranks #1,478 in English word frequency. Often confused with chapel and Chantal.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | channel |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | /ˈt͡ʃænəl/ |
| Letters | 7 |
| Frequency rank | #1,478 |
| Misspellings tracked | 8 |
| Confusable pairs | 17 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Frequency rank visualization
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for channel is 7 letters long, classified as anoun, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /ˈt͡ʃænəl/. Corpus data places it at rank #1,478 in overall English word frequency, indicating it appears regularly in written and spoken text.Wiktionary records 22 distinct senses for this headword, so context determines which meaning a reader should apply.
Our Hunspell-derived misspelling index lists 8 documented wrong-spelling variants for channel, with forms such as "cahnnel", "cchannel", and "chanenl". 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 17 confusable-pair relationships, "chapel", "Chantal", "channels", and more, where similar look or sound leads writers to substitute one word for another in context.
Etymologically, the entry records: From Middle English chanel (also as canel, cannel, kanel), a borrowing from Old French chanel, canel, from Latin canālis (“groove; canal; channel”). Doublet of canal. 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 channel, spelled C-H-A-N-N-E-L, and any other sequence of those letters, regardless of how natural it feels, is a misspelling in standard orthography.
Definition
- 1The hollow bed of running waters; (also) the bed of the sea or other body of water.
- 2The natural or man-made deeper course through a reef, bar, bay, or any shallow body of water.
- 3The navigable part of a river.
- 4A narrow body of water between two land masses.
- 5Something through which another thing passes; a means of conveying or transmitting.
- 6An ion channel: pore-forming proteins located in a cell membrane that allow specific ions to pass through.
- 7A gutter; a groove, as in a fluted column.
- 8A structural member with a cross section shaped like a squared-off letter C.
- 9A connection between initiating and terminating nodes of a circuit.
- 10The narrow conducting portion of a MOSFET transistor.
- 11The part that connects a data source to a data sink.
- 12A path for conveying electrical or electromagnetic signals, usually distinguished from other parallel paths.
- 13A single path provided by a transmission medium via physical separation, such as by multipair cable.
- 14A single path provided by a transmission medium via spectral or protocol separation, such as by frequency or time-division multiplexing.
- 15A specific radio frequency or band of frequencies, usually in conjunction with a predetermined letter, number, or codeword, and allocated by international agreement.
- 16A specific radio frequency or band of frequencies used for transmitting television.
- 17The portion of a storage medium, such as a track or a band, that is accessible to a given reading or writing station or head.
- 18The part of a turbine pump where the pressure is built up.
- 19A distribution channel.
- 20A particular area for conversations on an IRC or similar network, analogous to a chat room and often dedicated to a specific topic.
- 21A means of delivering up-to-date Internet content via a push mechanism.
- 22A psychic or medium who temporarily takes on the personality of somebody else.
Etymology
From Middle English chanel (also as canel, cannel, kanel), a borrowing from Old French chanel, canel, from Latin canālis (“groove; canal; channel”). Doublet of canal.
This word in other languages
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as: cahnnel,cchannel,chanenl,channell,channle,chhannel,chnanel,hcannel
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
Relative frequency of common misspelling types for channel
Misspelling Variants of "channel"
Frequency rank: #1,478 in English
Frequently Asked Questions
How do you spell "channel"?
What does "channel" mean?
What words are commonly confused with "channel"?
How do you pronounce "channel"?
What is the origin of the word "channel"?
Is PlainSpell free to use?
Nearby English words
Other entries that begin with the letter C in our English index: