stain
Definition, pronunciation, etymology, and usage for the English word. Free spelling reference powered by Wiktionary.
Letters
5 characters
Language
English
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Detailed reference entry for the English word "stain", 5-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 "stain" 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 "stain" for academic writing, checking homophone confusion, or exploring etymological origins, this page provides a citation-backed, free reference that requires no sign-up.
stain is aEnglishnoun. It means: A discolored spot or area caused by spillage or other contact with certain fluids or substances. Pronounced /steɪn/. Often confused with STI and stay.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | stain |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| IPA | /steɪn/ |
| Letters | 5 |
| Frequency rank | #11,298 |
| Misspellings tracked | 6 |
| Confusable pairs | 20 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Frequency rank visualization
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for stain is 5 letters long, classified as anoun, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /steɪn/. Corpus data places it at rank #11,298 in overall English word frequency, marking it as uncommon enough that many writers pause before typing it.Wiktionary records 5 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 stain, with forms such as "sstain", "stainn", and "stani". 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, "STI", "stay", "star", and more, where similar look or sound leads writers to substitute one word for another in context.
Etymologically, the entry records: From Middle English steinen, steynen (“to stain, colour, paint”), of North Germanic origin, from Old Norse steina (“to stain, colour, paint”), from steinn (“stone, mineral blue, colour, stain”), from Proto-Norse ᛊᛏᚨᛁᚾᚨᛉ (stainaʀ), from Proto-Germanic *stain… 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 stain, spelled S-T-A-I-N, and any other sequence of those letters, regardless of how natural it feels, is a misspelling in standard orthography.
Definition
- 1A discolored spot or area caused by spillage or other contact with certain fluids or substances.
- 2A blemish on one's character or reputation.
- 3A substance used to soak into a surface and colour it.
- 4A reagent or dye used to stain microscope specimens so as to make some structures visible.
- 5One of a number of non-standard tinctures used chiefly in post-medieval heraldry, especially tenné, murrey, or sanguine.
Etymology
From Middle English steinen, steynen (“to stain, colour, paint”), of North Germanic origin, from Old Norse steina (“to stain, colour, paint”), from steinn (“stone, mineral blue, colour, stain”), from Proto-Norse ᛊᛏᚨᛁᚾᚨᛉ (stainaʀ), from Proto-Germanic *stainaz (“stone”), from Proto-Indo-European *steyh₂- (“to stiffen”). Cognate with Old English stān (“stone”). More at stone. Replaced native Middle English wem (“spot, blemish, stain”), from Old English wamm (“spot, stain”). In some senses, influenced by unrelated Middle English disteynen (“to discolor, remove the colour from"; literally, "de-colour”), from Anglo-Norman desteindre (“to remove the colour from, bleach”), from Old French destaindre (“to remove the color from, bleach”), from des- (“dis-, de-, un-”) + teindre (“to dye”), from Latin tingo.
This word in other languages
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as: sstain,stainn,stani,stian,sttain,tsain
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
Relative frequency of common misspelling types for stain
Misspelling Variants of "stain"
Frequency rank: #11,298 in English
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Nearby English words
Other entries that begin with the letter S in our English index: