lain
/leɪn/verb
lain is spelled L-A-I-N: 4 letters and one syllable. It appears about once in every 1 million words in written English, the 34,063rd most frequent word form (wordfreq, 2021 data). As a verb, lain means “past participle of lie (“to be oriented in a horizontal position, situated”)” (English Wiktionary, September 2026).
How many letters and syllables are in lain?
| Letters | 4: L-A-I-N |
|---|---|
| Syllables | 1 (from its American pronunciation) |
| In writing | about once in every 1 million words; the 34,063rd most frequent word form |
| Wrong spellings searched | none measured in search |
| Pairs people search | |
| Sounds like | |
| 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 lain?
Lain appears about once in every 1 million words in written English, the 34,063rd 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 lain?
- /leɪn/
Lain 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-lain.ogg, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).
Words people confuse with lain
Word pairs people search, with the monthly searches for “a vs b” (G: Google, B: Bing, United States).
Sounds like: lane (Wiktionary's homophone list; some hold only in some accents).
Also written: lien.
Sources: Google and Bing searches (September 2025 to August 2026, through DataForSEO); English Wiktionary (homophones, alternative spellings).
What rhymes with lain?
No other word on PlainSpell ends in the same sounds as lain.
Spelled with the same letters in another order: nail, anil.
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 lain
- lains present, singular, he/she/it
- laining participle, present
- lained participle, past
- lean
- len
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
What does lain mean?
The meanings the English Wiktionary records, quoted as written there (source below).
verb
- 1
past participle of lie (“to be oriented in a horizontal position, situated”)
He had lain there for many hours.
- 2
nonstandardpast participle of lay (“to put down”)
- 3
obsoleteTo conceal, keep quiet about.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
Lain in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese
In the sense situated horizontally:
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 lain come from?
Inflected forms.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).