# link

> English word · Noun · IPA /lɪŋk/ · frequency rank #1,108

## Definitions
1. A connection between places, people, events, things, or ideas.
2. One element of a chain or other connected series.
3. Abbreviation of hyperlink.
4. The connection between buses or systems.
5. A space comprising one or more disjoint knots.
6. A thin wild bank of land splitting two cultivated patches and often linking two hills.
7. An individual person or element in a system
8. Anything doubled and closed like a link of a chain.
9. A sausage that is not a patty.
10. Any 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.
11. Any 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.
12. The 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.
13. A bond of affinity, or a unit of valence between atoms; applied to a unit of chemical force or attraction.
14. The windings of a river; the land along a winding stream.
15. An 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”).

## Easily confused with
- **LN** (https://plainspell.com/en/vs/link-vs-ln)
- **lit** (https://plainspell.com/en/vs/link-vs-lit)
- **lip** (https://plainspell.com/en/vs/link-vs-lip)
- **Liz** (https://plainspell.com/en/vs/link-vs-liz)
- **Liu** (https://plainspell.com/en/vs/link-vs-liu)
- **Liv** (https://plainspell.com/en/vs/link-vs-liv)
- **Lon** (https://plainspell.com/en/vs/link-vs-lon)
- **lis** (https://plainspell.com/en/vs/link-vs-lis)
- **lyn** (https://plainspell.com/en/vs/link-vs-lyn)
- **lun** (https://plainspell.com/en/vs/link-vs-lun)
- **Luk** (https://plainspell.com/en/vs/link-vs-luk)
- **long** (https://plainspell.com/en/vs/link-vs-long)
- **look** (https://plainspell.com/en/vs/link-vs-look)
- **live** (https://plainspell.com/en/vs/link-vs-live)
- **list** (https://plainspell.com/en/vs/link-vs-list)
- **luck** (https://plainspell.com/en/vs/link-vs-luck)
- **lock** (https://plainspell.com/en/vs/link-vs-lock)
- **lips** (https://plainspell.com/en/vs/link-vs-lips)
- **Lisa** (https://plainspell.com/en/vs/link-vs-lisa)
- **lion** (https://plainspell.com/en/vs/link-vs-lion)

## Common misspellings (6)
`ilnk`, `likn`, `linkk`, `linnk`, `llink`, `lnik`

## Source
Compiled from Wiktionary via kaikki.org (CC BY-SA). Data vintage: 2026-05-06.
Canonical page: https://plainspell.com/en/word/link