chip
Definition, pronunciation, etymology, and usage for the English word. Free spelling reference powered by Wiktionary.
Letters
4 characters
Language
English
word origin
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Detailed reference entry for the English word "chip", 4-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 "chip" 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 "chip" for academic writing, checking homophone confusion, or exploring etymological origins, this page provides a citation-backed, free reference that requires no sign-up.
chip is aEnglishnoun. It means: A small piece broken from a larger piece of solid material. Pronounced /t͡ʃʰɪp/. It ranks #4,219 in English word frequency. Often confused with cp and ci.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | chip |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | /t͡ʃʰɪp/ |
| Letters | 4 |
| Frequency rank | #4,219 |
| Misspellings tracked | 6 |
| Confusable pairs | 20 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Frequency rank visualization
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for chip is 4 letters long, classified as anoun, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /t͡ʃʰɪp/. Corpus data places it at rank #4,219 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 6 documented wrong-spelling variants for chip, with forms such as "cchip", "chhip", and "chipp". 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 20 confusable-pair relationships, "cp", "ci", "cup", and more, where similar look or sound leads writers to substitute one word for another in context.
Etymologically, the entry records: Noun from Middle English chip, chippe, from Old English ċipp (“chip; small piece of wood, shaving”), from Old English *ċippian (“to cut; hew”) – attested in Old English forċippian (“to cut off”) –, from Proto-West Germanic *kippōn (“to cut; carve; hack; cho… 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 chip, spelled C-H-I-P, and any other sequence of those letters, regardless of how natural it feels, is a misspelling in standard orthography.
Definition
- 1A small piece broken from a larger piece of solid material.
- 2A damaged area of a surface where a small piece has been broken off.
- 3A token used in place of cash.
- 4A medallion.
- 5A sovereign (the coin).
- 6A circuit fabricated in one piece on a small, thin substrate; a microchip.
- 7A hybrid device mounted in a substrate, containing electronic circuitry and miniaturised mechanical, chemical or biochemical devices.
- 8A deep-fried strip of potato; see also usage note at french fries.
- 9A thin, crisp, fried slice of potato, a crisp; occasionally a similar fried slice of another vegetable or dried fruit.
- 10A type of shot in various sports.
- 11A type of shot in various sports.
- 12A type of shot in various sports.
- 13A type of shot in various sports.
- 14A type of shot in various sports.
- 15A dried piece of dung, often used as fuel.
- 16A receptacle, usually for strawberries or other fruit.
- 17A small, near-conical piece of food added in baking.
- 18A small rectangle of colour printed on coated paper for colour selection and matching. A virtual equivalent in software applications.
- 19The triangular piece of wood attached to the log line.
- 20Wood or Cuban palm leaf split into slips, or straw plaited in a special manner, for making hats or bonnets.
- 21Anything dried up, withered, or without flavour.
- 22The smallest amount; a whit or jot.
Etymology
Noun from Middle English chip, chippe, from Old English ċipp (“chip; small piece of wood, shaving”), from Old English *ċippian (“to cut; hew”) – attested in Old English forċippian (“to cut off”) –, from Proto-West Germanic *kippōn (“to cut; carve; hack; chop”), from Proto-Germanic *kippōną (“to chip, chop”), from Proto-Indo-European *ǵeyb- (“to split; divide; germinate; sprout”). Related to Dutch kip, keep (“notch; nick; score”), Dutch kippen (“to hatch”), German Low German kippen (“to cut; clip; trim; shorten”), German kipfen (“to chop off the tip; snip”), Old Swedish kippa (“to chop”). Compare also chop. The formally similar Old English ċipp, ċypp, ċyp (“a beam; log; stock; post”), from Proto-Germanic *kippaz (“log; beam”) (whence Old Saxon kip (“post”), Old High German kipfa, chipfa (“axle, stave”), Old Norse keppr (“cudgel, club”)) is a different, unrelated word either borrowed from Latin cippus (“stake; pale; post”) or borrowed from the same source language as the Latin. Verb from Middle English chippen, from Old English *ċippian (“to cut; hew”) – attested in Old English forċippian (“to cut off”) – see above.
This word in other languages
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as: cchip,chhip,chipp,chpi,cihp,hcip
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
Relative frequency of common misspelling types for chip
Misspelling Variants of "chip"
Frequency rank: #4,219 in English
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Nearby English words
Other entries that begin with the letter C in our English index: