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satin

/ˈsæt.ɪn/noun, adjective, verb

satin is spelled S-A-T-I-N: 5 letters and 2 syllables. It appears 2.5 times per million words in written English, the 17,342nd most frequent word form (wordfreq, 2021 data). As a noun, satin means “A cloth woven from silk, nylon or polyester with a glossy surface and a dull back. (The same weaving technique applied to cotton produces cloth…” (English Wiktionary, September 2026). The plural of satin is satins.

How many letters and syllables are in satin?

Letters5: S-A-T-I-N
Syllables2 (from its American pronunciation)
In writing2.5 times per million words; the 17,342nd most frequent word form
Wrong spellings searchednone measured in search
Pairs people search
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 satin?

Satin appears 2.5 times per million words in written English, the 17,342nd 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 satin?

  • /ˈsæt.ɪn/
  • [ˈsæt.n̩]
  • [ˈsæʔ.n̩]

Satin has 2 syllables (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-satin.ogg, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).

Words people confuse with satin

Word pairs people search, with the monthly searches for “a vs b” (G: Google, B: Bing, United States).

satan vs satin0 B

Also written: satan.

Sources: Google and Bing searches (September 2025 to August 2026, through DataForSEO); English Wiktionary (homophones, alternative spellings).

What rhymes with satin?

No other word on PlainSpell ends in the same sounds as satin.

Spelled with the same letters in another order: saint, stain, astin.

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 satin

  • satins plural, present, singular, he/she/it
  • satining participle, present
  • satined participle, past

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).

What does satin mean?

The meanings the English Wiktionary records, quoted as written there (source below).

noun

  1. 1

    A cloth woven from silk, nylon or polyester with a glossy surface and a dull back. (The same weaving technique applied to cotton produces cloth termed sateen).

    Ibn Batuta informs us that a rich silk texture made here was called Zaitûniya; and there can be little doubt that this is the real origin of our word Satin,–Zettani in mediæval Italian, Aceytuni in Spanish.

  2. 2

    obsoleteslangGin (the drink).

adjective

  1. 1

    Semigloss.

    satin paint

verb

  1. 1

    To make (paper, silver, etc.) smooth and glossy like satin.

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).

Satin in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese

LanguageWords
Frenchsatin (cloth with a glossy surface and a dull back), satiné (smooth and shiny)
GermanSatin, Satinstoff, Satintuch, Atlasstoff, Atlastuch, Atlasgewebe (cloth with a glossy surface and a dull back)
Portuguesecetim (cloth with a glossy surface and a dull back)
Spanishraso, satén (cloth with a glossy surface and a dull back)

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 satin come from?

From French satin, which is derived from "Zaitun", the Arabic name for the Chinese city of Quanzhou, itself derived from Arabic زَيْتُون (zaytūn, “Zayton; olive”), from phono-semantic matching from Chinese 刺桐 (MC tshjeH duwng, “coral tree”) in 刺桐城 (MC tshjeH duwng dzyeng, “coral tree town”), an old name for Quanzhou.

Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).

What to look up after satin