chronic
/ˈkɹɑ.nɪk/adjective, noun
chronic is spelled C-H-R-O-N-I-C. The wrong spelling people search most is cronic: about 380 Bing searches a month in the United States (September 2025 to August 2026), about 1 in 11 of all searches for the word. Chronic is an adjective meaning “Being problematic over an extended period of time”.
How many letters and syllables are in chronic?
| Letters | 7: C-H-R-O-N-I-C |
|---|---|
| Syllables | 2 (from its American pronunciation) |
| In writing | 16 times per million words; the 5,121st most frequent word form |
| Wrong spellings searched | 1; the most searched, cronic, about 380 Bing searches a month (all of them) |
| Rhymes with |
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 do you spell chronic?
Chronic is spelled C-H-R-O-N-I-C. One wrong spelling is searched or written often enough to measure; together they are about 1 in 11 of the searches for chronic 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 chronic?
Chronic appears 16 times per million words in written English, the 5,121st 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 chronic?
- UK /ˈkɹɒn.ɪk/
- US /ˈkɹɑ.nɪk/
- Canada /ˈkɹɒn.ɪk/
Chronic has 2 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-au-chronic.ogg, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).
What rhymes with chronic?
The 12 most written words on PlainSpell end in the same sounds as chronic from its last stressed vowel (/ɑnɪk/):
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 chronic
- more chronic comparative
- most chronic superlative
- chronics plural
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
What does chronic mean?
The meanings the English Wiktionary records, quoted as written there (source below).
adjective
- 1
Being problematic over an extended period of time.
chronic unemployment; chronic poverty; chronic anger; chronic life
- 2
Prolonged or slow to heal.
chronic cough; chronic headache; chronic illness
- 3
Of a person, suffering from an affliction that is prolonged or slow to heal.
Chronic patients must learn to live with their condition.
- 4
Inveterate or habitual.
He's a chronic smoker.
- 5
slangVery bad, awful.
That concert was chronic.
- 6
informalExtremely serious.
They left him in a chronic condition.
- 7
slangGood, great; "wicked".
That was cool, chronic in fact.
noun
- 1
slangMarijuana, typically of high quality.
- 2
A condition of extended duration, either continuous or marked by frequent recurrence. Sometimes implies a condition which worsens with each recurrence, though that is not inherent in the term.
- 3
A person who is chronic, such as a criminal reoffender or a person with chronic disease.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
Chronic in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese
In the sense that continues over an extended period of time:
| Language | Words |
|---|---|
| French | chronique |
| German | langanhaltend, andauernd, fortwährend, Langzeit-, dauerhaft, chronisch |
| Portuguese | crónico |
| Spanish | crónico |
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 chronic come from?
From chronical, from Old French cronike, from Latin chronicus, from Ancient Greek χρονικός (khronikós, “of time”), from χρόνος (khrónos, “time”). By surface analysis, chron- + -ic.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).