chi
/kaɪ/noun
chi is spelled C-H-I: 3 letters and one syllable. It appears 8.9 times per million words in written English, the 7,672nd most frequent word form (wordfreq, 2021 data). People search “chi vs qi” about 260 times a month (Google, United States). As a noun, chi means “The twenty-second letter of the Classical and Modern Greek alphabets” (English Wiktionary, September 2026). The plural of chi is chis.
How many letters and syllables are in chi?
| Letters | 3: C-H-I |
|---|---|
| Syllables | 1 (from its American pronunciation) |
| In writing | 8.9 times per million words; the 7,672nd most frequent word form |
| Wrong spellings searched | none measured in search |
| Pairs people search | |
| Same letters |
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); rhymes and same-letter words are computed by PlainSpell from its own word list.
How common is chi?
Chi appears 8.9 times per million words in written English, the 7,672nd 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 chi?
- /kaɪ/
As a noun (“A life force in traditional Chinese philosophy, culture…”): /t͡ʃiː/.
As a noun (“The Chinese foot, a traditional Chinese unit of length…”): /t͡ʃə/.
Chi has one syllable (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-chi.ogg, LL-Q1860_(eng)-Vealhurl-chi.wav, LL-Q1860_(eng)-Vealhurl-chi2.wav, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).
Words people confuse with chi
Word pairs people search, with the monthly searches for “a vs b” (G: Google, B: Bing, United States).
Sources: Google and Bing searches (September 2025 to August 2026, through DataForSEO); English Wiktionary (homophones, alternative spellings).
What rhymes with chi?
No other word on PlainSpell ends in the same sounds as chi.
Spelled with the same letters in another order: ich, hic.
Computed by PlainSpell from the pronunciations in the English Wiktionary (dump of September 2, 2026): a rhyme shares every sound from the last stressed vowel to the end; ordered by written frequency (wordfreq 3.1).
Forms of chi
- chis plural
- khi
- ch'i
- ki
- qi
- chih
- ch'ih
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
What does chi mean?
The meanings the English Wiktionary records, quoted as written there (source below).
noun
- 1
The twenty-second letter of the Classical and Modern Greek alphabets.
- 2
A life force in traditional Chinese philosophy, culture, medicine, etc, related (but not limited) to breath and circulation.
- 3
The Chinese foot, a traditional Chinese unit of length based on the human forearm.
- 4
The Chinese unit of length standardized in 1984 as ¹/₃ of a meter.
- 5
The Taiwanese unit of length standardized as ¹⁰/₃₃ of a meter, identical to the Japanese shaku.
- 6
The chek or Hong Kong foot, a unit of length standardized as 0.371475 meters.
- 7
Clipping of chihuahua.
noun
- 1
informalClipping of Chihuahua.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
Chi in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese
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 chi come from?
From Latin chī, from Ancient Greek χεῖ (kheî).
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).