complain
/kəmˈpleɪn/verb
complain is spelled C-O-M-P-L-A-I-N. The wrong spelling people search most is compain: about 40 Bing searches a month in the United States (September 2025 to August 2026), about 1 in 27 of all searches for the word. Complain is a verb meaning “To express feelings of pain, dissatisfaction, or resentment”.
How many letters and syllables are in complain?
| Letters | 8: C-O-M-P-L-A-I-N |
|---|---|
| Syllables | 2 (from its American pronunciation) |
| In writing | 17 times per million words; the 4,838th most frequent word form |
| Wrong spellings searched | 1; the most searched, compain, about 40 Bing searches a month (all of them) |
| 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 do you spell complain?
Complain is spelled C-O-M-P-L-A-I-N. One wrong spelling is searched or written often enough to measure; together they are about 1 in 27 of the searches for complain 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 complain?
Complain appears 17 times per million words in written English, the 4,838th 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 complain?
- /kəmˈpleɪn/
Complain 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-us-complain.ogg, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).
What rhymes with complain?
No other word on PlainSpell ends in the same sounds as complain.
Spelled with the same letters in another order: amplicon.
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 complain
- complains present, singular, he/she/it
- complaining participle, present
- complained participle, past
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
What does complain mean?
The meanings the English Wiktionary records, quoted as written there (source below).
verb
- 1
To express feelings of pain, dissatisfaction, or resentment.
Joe was always complaining about the noise made by his neighbours.
- 2
To state the presence of something negative; to indicate that one is suffering from something; to report (e.g.) a symptom.
The patient complained of headache, nausea, and joint pain.
- 3
To make a formal accusation or bring a formal charge.
They've complained about me to the police again.
- 4
To creak or squeak, as a timber or wheel.
the complaining bed-springs
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
Complain in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese
| Language | Words |
|---|---|
| French | porter plainte , se plaindre |
| German | sich beschweren, klagen , sich beklagen, meckern |
| Portuguese | queixar-se , reclamar |
| Spanish | reclamar, protestar, quejarse, querellarse , alegar |
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.