rain-check
Definition, pronunciation, etymology, and usage for the English word. Free spelling reference powered by Wiktionary.
Letters
10 characters
Language
English
word origin
Source
Wiktionary
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Detailed reference entry for the English word "rain-check", 10-letters, with pronunciation in International Phonetic Alphabet notation, etymology traced through Germanic and Romance roots where applicable, common misspelling variants catalogued from Wiktionary, and usage frequency ranked against an open word-frequency list covering the top 100,000 English words. PlainSpell covers English, Spanish, Portuguese, French, and German spelling with confusable-pair detection that highlights visually and phonetically similar words. This entry for "rain-check" 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-check" for academic writing, checking homophone confusion, or exploring etymological origins, this page provides a citation-backed, free reference that requires no sign-up.
rain check is aEnglishnoun. It means: A reissue, at no extra charge, of a ticket for a baseball game or other outdoor event postponed or interrupted because of rain.
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Browse all word comparisons →| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | rain check |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| Letters | 10 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Frequency rank visualization
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for rain check is 10 letters long, classified as anoun. It sits outside the most-frequent rank tiers, which is often why uncommon words generate more spelling variants per reader.Wiktionary records 4 distinct senses for this headword, so context determines which meaning a reader should apply.
No misspelling variants are generated for rain check in our index, suggesting the orthography follows predictable English patterns.It is not paired with a close-neighbour confusable in our dataset, which tends to mean the word is visually distinctive enough to stand on its own.
Etymologically, the entry records: 1877 US in baseball; metaphorical usage from 1896, more generally from 1930. From at least 1870, baseball teams would reissue tickets in case of postponement due to rain, which became known as rain checks. 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 check, spelled R-A-I-N- -C-H-E-C-K, and any other sequence of those letters, regardless of how natural it feels, is a misspelling in standard orthography.
Definition
- 1A reissue, at no extra charge, of a ticket for a baseball game or other outdoor event postponed or interrupted because of rain.
- 2An agreement to honor a current offer after its normal expiration.
- 3An agreement to honor a current offer after its normal expiration.
- 4An agreement to honor a current offer after its normal expiration.
Etymology
1877 US in baseball; metaphorical usage from 1896, more generally from 1930. From at least 1870, baseball teams would reissue tickets in case of postponement due to rain, which became known as rain checks.
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Nearby English words
Other entries that begin with the letter R in our English index: