link
Definition, pronunciation, etymology, and usage for the English word. Free spelling reference powered by Wiktionary.
Letters
4 characters
Language
English
word origin
Source
Wiktionary
open dictionary
Access
Free
no sign-up needed
Detailed reference entry for the English word "link", 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 "link" 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 "link" for academic writing, checking homophone confusion, or exploring etymological origins, this page provides a citation-backed, free reference that requires no sign-up.
link is aEnglishnoun. It means: A connection between places, people, events, things, or ideas. Pronounced /lɪŋk/. It ranks #1,108 in English word frequency. Often confused with LN and lit.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | link |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | /lɪŋk/ |
| Letters | 4 |
| Frequency rank | #1,108 |
| Misspellings tracked | 6 |
| Confusable pairs | 20 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Frequency rank visualization
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for link is 4 letters long, classified as anoun, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /lɪŋk/. Corpus data places it at rank #1,108 in overall English word frequency, indicating it appears regularly in written and spoken text.Wiktionary records 15 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 link, with forms such as "ilnk", "likn", and "linkk". 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, "LN", "lit", "lip", and more, where similar look or sound leads writers to substitute one word for another in context.
Etymologically, the entry records: From Middle English linke, lenke, from a merger of Old English hlenċe, hlenċa (“ring; chainlink”) and Old Norse *hlenkr, hlekkr (“ring; chain”); both from Proto-Germanic *hlankiz (“ring; bond; fettle; fetter”), from Proto-Germanic *hlankaz (“bendsome, flexi… 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 link, spelled L-I-N-K, and any other sequence of those letters, regardless of how natural it feels, is a misspelling in standard orthography.
Definition
- 1A connection between places, people, events, things, or ideas.
- 2One element of a chain or other connected series.
- 3Abbreviation of hyperlink.
- 4The connection between buses or systems.
- 5A space comprising one or more disjoint knots.
- 6A thin wild bank of land splitting two cultivated patches and often linking two hills.
- 7An individual person or element in a system
- 8Anything doubled and closed like a link of a chain.
- 9A sausage that is not a patty.
- 10Any one of the several elementary pieces of a mechanism, such as the fixed frame, or a rod, wheel, mass of confined liquid, etc., by which relative motion of other parts is produced and constrained.
- 11Any intermediate rod or piece for transmitting force or motion, especially a short connecting rod with a bearing at each end; specifically (in steam engines) the slotted bar, or connecting piece, to the opposite ends of which the eccentric rods are jointed, and by means of which the movement of the valve is varied, in a link motion.
- 12The length of one joint of Gunter's chain, being the hundredth part of it, or 7.92 inches, the chain being 66 feet in length.
- 13A bond of affinity, or a unit of valence between atoms; applied to a unit of chemical force or attraction.
- 14The windings of a river; the land along a winding stream.
- 15An introductory cue.
Etymology
From Middle English linke, lenke, from a merger of Old English hlenċe, hlenċa (“ring; chainlink”) and Old Norse *hlenkr, hlekkr (“ring; chain”); both from Proto-Germanic *hlankiz (“ring; bond; fettle; fetter”), from Proto-Germanic *hlankaz (“bendsome, flexible”), from Proto-Indo-European *kleng-, *klenk- (“to bend; twist; wind”). Used in English since the 14th century. Related to lank. Cognates Cognate with Low German Lenk (“link”), Danish lænke (“chain; link”), Elfdalian lekk (“link”), Icelandic hlekkur (“link”), Norwegian Bokmål lenke (“chain; link”), Norwegian Nynorsk lenke, lenkje (“chain; link”), Swedish länk (“chain; link”).
This word in other languages
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as: ilnk,likn,linkk,linnk,llink,lnik
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
Relative frequency of common misspelling types for link
Misspelling Variants of "link"
Frequency rank: #1,108 in English
Frequently Asked Questions
How do you spell "link"?
What does "link" mean?
What words are commonly confused with "link"?
How do you pronounce "link"?
What is the origin of the word "link"?
Is PlainSpell free to use?
Nearby English words
Other entries that begin with the letter L in our English index: