rain
Definition, pronunciation, etymology, and usage for the English word. Free spelling reference powered by Wiktionary.
Letters
4 characters
Language
English
word origin
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Detailed reference entry for the English word "rain", 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 "rain" 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 "rain" for academic writing, checking homophone confusion, or exploring etymological origins, this page provides a citation-backed, free reference that requires no sign-up.
rain is aEnglishnoun. It means: Condensed water falling from a cloud. Pronounced /ˈɹeɪ̯n/. It ranks #2,012 in English word frequency. Often confused with RN and RI.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | rain |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | /ˈɹeɪ̯n/ |
| Letters | 4 |
| Frequency rank | #2,012 |
| Misspellings tracked | 4 |
| Confusable pairs | 20 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Frequency rank visualization
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for rain is 4 letters long, classified as anoun, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /ˈɹeɪ̯n/. Corpus data places it at rank #2,012 in overall English word frequency, indicating it appears regularly in written and spoken text.Wiktionary records 3 distinct senses for this headword, so context determines which meaning a reader should apply.
Our Hunspell-derived misspelling index lists 4 documented wrong-spelling variants for rain, with forms such as "arin", "rainn", and "rian". 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, "RN", "RI", "run", and more, where similar look or sound leads writers to substitute one word for another in context.
Etymologically, the entry records: Etymology tree Proto-Indo-European *Hréǵʰ-der. Proto-Indo-European *Hréǵʰnos? Proto-Germanic *regną Proto-West Germanic *regn Old English reġn Middle English reyn English rain Inherited from Middle English reyn, rein, from Old English reġn, from Proto-West … 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 rain, spelled R-A-I-N, and any other sequence of those letters, regardless of how natural it feels, is a misspelling in standard orthography.
Definition
- 1Condensed water falling from a cloud.
- 2Any matter moving or falling, usually through air, and especially if liquid or otherwise figuratively identifiable with raindrops.
- 3An instance of particles or larger pieces of matter moving or falling through air.
Etymology
Etymology tree Proto-Indo-European *Hréǵʰ-der. Proto-Indo-European *Hréǵʰnos? Proto-Germanic *regną Proto-West Germanic *regn Old English reġn Middle English reyn English rain Inherited from Middle English reyn, rein, from Old English reġn, from Proto-West Germanic *regn, from Proto-Germanic *regną, of uncertain origin. Possibly from pre-Germanic *Hréǵ-no-, from Proto-Indo-European *Hreǵ- (“to flow”), although the consonant reflexes don't match. Cognates Cognate with Yola rhyne, ryne (“rain”), North Frisian Riin, rin (“rain”), Saterland Frisian Rien (“rain”), West Frisian rein (“rain”), Dutch regen (“rain”), Limburgish raenger, Rään (“rain”), German Low German Regen, Ręgen, Rägen (“rain”), Luxembourgish Reen (“rain”), German Regen (“rain”), Mòcheno reng (“rain”), Vilamovian raan (“rain”), Alemannic German regu, räge, rägä (“rain”), Bavarian Regn, rein (“rain”), Cimbrian regan, réego, reng (“rain”), Yiddish רעגן (regn, “rain”), Danish, Faroese, Icelandic, Norwegian Bokmål, Norwegian Nynorsk and Swedish regn (“rain”), Crimean Gothic reghen (“rain”), Gothic 𐍂𐌹𐌲𐌽 (rign, “rain”).
This word in other languages
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as: arin,rainn,rian,rrain
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
Relative frequency of common misspelling types for rain
Misspelling Variants of "rain"
Frequency rank: #2,012 in English
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Nearby English words
Other entries that begin with the letter R in our English index: