chapel
/ˈt͡ʃæp.əl/
"chapel" is a 6-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“chapel” is a regularly-used English word, ranked #6,771 in English word frequency and used as a noun.
- #6,771
- frequency rank, English
- 6
- letters
- 9
- tracked misspellings
- 20
- confusable pairs
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - A place of worship, smaller than or subordinate to a church.
Visual similarity to commonly confused words
How many letter changes separate each confused pair (Levenshtein distance, normalized).
Source: PlainSpell confusable corpus (Wiktionary, CC BY-SA).
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | chapel |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | /ˈt͡ʃæp.əl/ |
| Letters | 6 |
| Frequency rank | #6,771 |
| Misspellings tracked | 9 |
| Confusable pairs | 20 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “chapel” sits in English frequency
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for chapel is 6 letters long, classified as a noun, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /ˈt͡ʃæp.əl/. Corpus data places it at rank #6,771 in overall English word frequency, indicating it appears regularly in written and spoken text. Wiktionary records 7 distinct senses for this headword, so context determines which meaning a reader should apply.
Our generated misspelling index lists 9 likely wrong-spelling variants for chapel, with forms such as "cahpel", "cchapel", and "chaepl". Every one of these variants traces to a single-character edit -- an added or dropped letter, a swapped consonant, or a vowel swap -- the kind of slip a spell-checker is built to catch. It also participates in 20 confusable-pair relationships, "chase", "chaps", "chased", and more, where similar look or sound leads writers to substitute one word for another in context.
Etymologically, the entry records: From Middle English chapele, chapel, from Old French chapele, from Late Latin cappella (“little cloak; chapel”), diminutive of cappa (“cloak, cape”). Doublet of capelle. (printing office): Said to be because printing was first carried on in England in a cha… The correct English form is chapel, spelled C-H-A-P-E-L.
Definition
- 1A place of worship, smaller than or subordinate to a church.
- 2A place of worship in another building or within a civil institution such as a larger church, airport, prison, monastery, school, etc.; often primarily for private prayer.
- 3A place of worship of a denomination not in conformity with the Church of England, usually Protestant; for example, of Nonconformist or Dissenter congregations.
- 4A funeral home, or a room in one for holding funeral services.
- 5A trade union branch in printing or journalism.
- 6A printing office.
- 7A choir of singers, or an orchestra, attached to the court of a prince or nobleman.
Etymology
From Middle English chapele, chapel, from Old French chapele, from Late Latin cappella (“little cloak; chapel”), diminutive of cappa (“cloak, cape”). Doublet of capelle. (printing office): Said to be because printing was first carried on in England in a chapel near Westminster Abbey.
This word in other languages
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as: cahpel,cchapel,chaepl,chapell,chaple,chappel,chhapel,chpael,hcapel
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
How far each generated variant is from the correct spelling of chapel - measured in single-character edits (insert, delete, or substitute a letter). Larger bars are easier to catch; one-edit slips are the sneakiest.
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 “chapel”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct English spelling is C-H-A-P-E-L - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
- Say it as /ˈt͡ʃæp.əl/ (IPA); tap the speaker on the pronunciation badge to hear it where audio exists.
- Don't mix it up with “chase” - see the side-by-side comparison. chapel vs chase
- 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.