Word.ws English Dictionary

chain

/ˈt͡ʃeɪn/

chain noun: a series of interconnected rings or links usually made of metal.

chain: a series of interconnected rings or links usually made of metal
Image: Toni Lozano, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Noun

chain (plural chains)

  1. A series of interconnected rings or links usually made of metal.
    • He wore a gold chain around the neck.
    • The anchor is connected to the boat with a 100-metre long chain.
    Synonyms:
    string, rackle
    1. An accessory, adornment or insignia comprising, containing or depicting a series of links.
      • wallet chain
    2. A livery collar, a chain of office.
      • And gainſt the General we will lift our ſwords
        And either lanch his greedie thirſting throat,
        Or take him priſoner, and his chaine ſhall ſerue
        For Manackles, till he be ranſom’d home.c. 1587–1588 (date written), [Christopher Marlowe], Tamburlaine the Great. […] The First Part […], 2nd edition, part 1, London: […] [R. Robinson for] Richard Iones, […], published 1592, →OCLC...
    3. (figuratively) That which confines, fetters, or secures; a bond.
      • the chains of habit
      • Driven down / To chains of darkness and the undying worm.1667, John Milton, “Book VI”, in Paradise Lost. […], London: […] [Samuel Simmons], and are to be sold by Peter Parker […]; [a]nd by Robert Boulter […]; [a]nd Matthias Walker, […], →OCLC; republished...
    4. (plural, usually) A snow chain.
      • He put chains on my tires.
    5. A bicycle chain.
      • My bike needs a chain.
    6. A pair of sticks connected by a ten yard chain, used to measure a down in American football.
    7. A watchchain.
      • His watch's chain was gold-plated.
    8. A keychain.
      • Get the key off my chain.
    9. (slang, African-American Vernacular) A necklace of chain jewelry, usually gold.
      • They knocked him out and snatched his chain.
    10. A door chain.
      • I couldn't open the door because it was on its chain.
    11. A series of interconnected links of known length, used as a measuring device.
    12. A long measuring tape.
    13. A unit of length, exactly equal to 22 yards, which is 4 rods or 100 links, and approximately equal to 20.12 metres; the length of a Gunter's surveying chain; the length of a cricket pitch.
      • "But it's too far—must be a quarter of a mile—and I've a portmanteau to carry." […]
        "Garn!" shouted the guard. "Taint ten chain. […]"1938, Xavier Herbert, chapter X, in Capricornia, New York: D. Appleton-Century, published 1943, page 177
    14. (in plural) Iron links bolted to the side of a vessel to bold the dead-eyes connected with the shrouds; also, the channels.
    15. (figuratively) A lightning bolt.
      • I saw a brilliant chain of lightning across the sky.
  2. A series of interconnected things.
    • a chain of mountains
    • a chain of ideas, one leading to the next
    Synonyms:
    streak, string
    1. An unbroken streak.
      • We have to maintain chain of custody.
      • You mustn't break the chain of this chain letter.
    2. A series of stores or businesses with the same brand name; a series of such stores as opposed to a small, independent shop.
      • That chain of restaurants is expanding into our town.
      • I love that place because it's not a chain.
    3. (always singular) A chain of command.
      • Send it up the chain, so head office will have to deal with it.
    4. (figuratively) The sequence of processes and transactions that result in a product or commodity being available.
      • cold chain, kill chain, supply chain, value chain
      • In public disclosures and press releases, the corporations perched atop the cobalt chain typically cite their commitments to international human rights norms, zero-tolerance policies on child labor, and adherence to the highest standards of supply chain due diligence.2023, Siddharth Kara, Cobalt Red: How the Blood of the Congo Powers Our Lives, St. Martin's Publishing Group
    5. The warp threads of a web.
    6. (UK) A sequence of linked house purchases, each of which is dependent on the preceding and succeeding purchase (said to be "broken" if a buyer or seller pulls out).
    7. A blockchain.
    8. A kinetic chain.
    9. (physical) A number of atoms in a series, which combine to form a molecule.
      • side chain
      • When examined, the molecular chain included oxygen and hydrogen.
  3. A totally ordered set, especially a totally ordered subset of a poset.
    • We first find an approximation of the chain partition, i.e. a small but not minimum size set of chains which cover all elements of the poset.2003, Jeremy P. Spinrad, Efficient Graph Representations, American Mathematical Society, page 108
  4. (originally) A formal sum of cells in a CW complex of a certain dimension k (in which case the formal sums are called k-chains); a formal sum of simplices or cubes of a certain dimension in a simplical complex or cubical complex (respectively).
  5. (broadly, homological algebra) An element of a group (or module) in a chain complex.

Verb

chain (third-person singular simple present chains, present participle chaining, simple past and past participle chained)

  1. (transitive) To fasten something with a chain.
    • You should chain your bicycle to the railings to protect it from being stolen.
  2. (figuratively) To connect as if with a chain, due to dependence, addiction, or other feelings
    • Sometimes I feel like I'm chained to this computer.
    • She's been chained to her principles since she was 18, it's unlikely you can convince her otherwise.
  3. (intransitive) To link multiple items together.
  4. (transitive) To secure someone with fetters.
  5. (transitive) To obstruct the mouth of a river etc with a chain.
  6. (figuratively) To obligate.
    • I miss when Game Of Thrones was wide open, but even then, the writers were chained to a narrative they didn’t yet know the ending of and feared straying too far from.2017 August 13, Brandon Nowalk, “Oldtown offers one last game-changing secret as Game Of Thrones goes behind enemy lines (newbies)”, in The Onion AV Club
  7. To relate data items with a chain of pointers.
  8. To be chained to another data item.
    • You don’t need to maintain state, or partition execution into different objects that then you can chain together (one executes the other on completion — chained continuations).2016 January 15, Mark Papadakis, “Coroutines and Fibers. Why and When”, in Medium
  9. (transitive) To measure a distance using a 66-foot long chain, as in land surveying.
    • As the line was surveyed - a sufficient length being first chained by a surveyor, who was followed by axemen - trees had to be felled and a certain width maintained, which was specified in the contract, for drays had to follow, and the trees might have fallen upon the line and broken it down at the...1887, Harriet W. Daly, Digging, Squatting, and Pioneering Life in the Northern Territory of South Australia, page 99
  10. (rare, transitive, associated with Acorn Computers) To load and automatically run (a program).
    • How do you get one program to chain another? I want to run DrawWorks2 then !Draw but as soon as you run Drawworks2 it finishes the batch file and doesn't go on to the next instruction! Is there a way without loading one of these automatic loaders?1996, Mr D Walsh, “Running two programs from a batch file”, in comp.sys.acorn.misc (Usenet)
    • You can do LOAD "" or CHAIN "" to load or chain the next program if I remember correctly (it's been a loooong time since I've used a tape on an Acorn!)1998, Juan Flynn, “BBC software transmitted on TV - how to load?”, in comp.sys.acorn.misc (Usenet)

Proper noun capitalized: Chain

Chain (plural Chains)

  1. A surname.

chain meaning in Hindi, Tamil, Marathi and Urdu

chain in Hindi

series of interconnected rings or links
सिलसिला silsilā, ज़ंजीर zañjīr, श्रृंखला śrŕṅkhlā

chain in Tamil

சங்கிலி, தொடரி

chain in Marathi

chain
साखळी sākhḷī

chain in Urdu

series of interconnected rings or links
سِلْسِلَہ silsila, زَنْجِیر zanjīr
series of interconnected things
سِلْسِلَہ silsila
More languagesFewer languages
chain in Bengali
শৃঙ্খল sriṅkhol
chain in Telugu
గొలుసు golusu
chain in Malayalam
ചങ്ങല caṅṅala, ശൃംഖല śr̥ṅkhala, ശ്രേണി śrēṇi
chain in Kannada
ಸರಪಳಿ, ದಳ್ದಳಿ, ವರಸೆ, ಸಾಲು
chain in Gujarati
સાંકળ sā̃kaḷ
chain in Sanskrit
शृङ्खल śṛṅkhala
chain in Sinhala
ඇකිල්ල ækilla
chain in Assamese
শিকলি xikoli
chain in Pashto
زنځير zanjír
chain in Tagalog
kadena, tanikala
chain in Arabic
سِلْسِلَة silsila
chain in Malay
rantai, rentetan, membelenggu, merantai
chain in Indonesian
rantai, mata rantai
chain in Thai
โซ่ sôo
chain in Vietnamese
dây xích, xích, chuỗi
chain in Myanmar
ကြိုး krui:, သံကြိုး samkrui:

Examples of chain in a sentence

  • This led to an unfortunate chain of events.
  • Recent versions of AntiSpam no longer use the Config file but have a Settings file instead, so when I updated the Config file to chain SpamStamp it had no effect as it was a redundant file.2006, Richard Porter, “SpamStamp double headers”, in comp.sys.acorn.apps (Usenet):

All 40 example sentences with chain

Synonyms of chain

Forms of chain

Noun
pluralchains
Verb
third-person singular presentchains
present participlechaining
past participlechained
pastchained
Proper noun
pluralChains

Past tense of chain: chained

Plural of chain: chains

Origin of chain

From Middle English cheyne, chaine, from Old French chaeine, chaene (“chain”), from Latin catēna (“chain”), from Proto-Indo-European *kat- (“to braid, twist; hut, shed”). Doublet of catena. Displaced native Middle English rakil and rakent (from Old English racente (“chain”)); see rackan.

Words formed from chain

Phrases with chain

155 more phrasesFewer phrases

Words that rhyme with chain

48 more rhymesFewer rhymes

Questions about chain

What does chain mean?
Chain means a series of interconnected rings or links usually made of metal.
What is chain in Hindi?
Chain in Hindi is सिलसिला (silsilā), ज़ंजीर (zañjīr), श्रृंखला (śrŕṅkhlā). See Chain meaning in Hindi.
How do you use chain in a sentence?
This led to an unfortunate chain of events.
What part of speech is chain?
Chain can be a noun, a verb or a proper noun.
How do you pronounce chain?
Chain is pronounced /ˈt͡ʃeɪn/.
What is the plural of chain?
The plural of chain is chains.

Words near chain in the dictionary

  1. Chaikovski
  2. Chaikovsky
  3. Chailey
  4. Chaillot
  5. Chaim
  6. chain
  7. chain armour
  8. chain armours
  9. chain binder
  10. chain binders
  11. chain boat

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: chain (page history and authors); Chain (page history and authors); chain (Tamil Wiktionary) (page history and authors); साखळी (Marathi) (page history and authors); chain (Kannada Wiktionary) (page history and authors); સાંકળ (Gujarati) (page history and authors); शृङ्खल (Sanskrit) (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated:

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: en-us-chain.ogg.

Cite this entry: “chain.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/chain. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.