chemical
/ˈkɛm.ɪ.kəl/adjective, noun
chemical is spelled C-H-E-M-I-C-A-L. The wrong spelling people search most is chemcial: about 10 Bing searches a month in the United States (September 2025 to August 2026), about 1 in 238 of all searches for the word. Chemical is an adjective meaning “Of or relating to chemistry”.
How many letters and syllables are in chemical?
| Letters | 8: C-H-E-M-I-C-A-L |
|---|---|
| Syllables | 3 (from its American pronunciation) |
| In writing | 37 times per million words; the 2,618th most frequent word form |
| Wrong spellings searched | 1; the most searched, chemcial, about 10 Bing searches a month (all of them) |
Sources: letters and syllables from the English Wiktionary's hyphenation or pronunciation and the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary; written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media); Bing searches in the United States: the average month from September 2025 to August 2026 (Microsoft Advertising keyword data through DataForSEO, read September 30, 2026).
How do you spell chemical?
Chemical is spelled C-H-E-M-I-C-A-L. One wrong spelling is searched or written often enough to measure; together they are about 1 in 237 of the searches for chemical in either form.
Bing searches in the United States: the average month from September 2025 to August 2026 (Microsoft Advertising keyword data through DataForSEO, read September 30, 2026). Wrong spellings are taken from Wiktionary entries tagged "misspelling" and its obsolete or nonstandard forms, Wikipedia's Lists of common misspellings and the codespell dictionary, then measured. The proofreader's marks show the change that corrects each one.
How common is chemical?
Chemical appears 37 times per million words in written English, the 2,618th most frequent word form in the list.
Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).
How do you pronounce chemical?
- /ˈkɛm.ɪ.kəl/
Chemical has 3 syllables (counted from its American pronunciation in the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary).
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Recordings: En-us-chemical.ogg, LL-Q1860_(eng)-Naomi_Persephone_Amethyst_(NaomiAmethyst)-chemical.wav, LL-Q1860_(eng)-Back_ache-chemical.wav, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).
Forms of chemical
- chemicals plural
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
What does chemical mean?
The meanings the English Wiktionary records, quoted as written there (source below).
adjective
- 1
Of or relating to chemistry.
chemical experiments
- 2
Of or relating to a material or processes not commonly found in nature or in a particular product.
- 3
obsoleteOf or relating to alchemy.
noun
- 1
Any specific chemical element or chemical compound or alloy.
Hydrogen and sulphur are both chemicals.
- 2
colloquialAn artificial chemical compound.
I color my hair with henna, not chemicals.
- 3
slangAn addictive drug.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
How do you abbreviate chemical?
Wiktionary records 6 abbreviations of chemical: CBN, Chem., NBC, chem, chem., chm.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
Chemical in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese
| Language | Words |
|---|---|
| French | chimique , produit chimique |
| German | chemisch , Chemikalie |
| Portuguese | químico , substância química , produto químico, química |
| Spanish | químico, quimiquero , producto químico |
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Translations are Wiktionary's, by sense; a linked word has its own PlainSpell page.
Where does chemical come from?
From New Latin chēmicus + -al.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).