Word.ws English Dictionary

chained

/t͡ʃeɪnd/

chained is the simple past and past participle of chain.

Adjective

chained (not comparable)

  1. Bound with chains.
  2. Linked in a chain.
  3. Wearing or adorned with a chain.
    • The gallant young Indian dandies at home on furlough—immense dandies these—chained and moustached—driving in tearing cabs […]1847 January – 1848 July, William Makepeace Thackeray, Vanity Fair […], London: Bradbury and Evans […], published 1848, →OCLC

Meaning of chain

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.
  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

See all 40 meanings of chain

Words formed from chained

Phrases with chained

Words that rhyme with chained

25 more rhymesFewer rhymes

Questions about chained

What does chained mean?
Chained means bound with chains.
What is chained the simple past and past participle of?
Chained is the simple past and past participle of chain.
What part of speech is chained?
Chained is an adjective.
How do you pronounce chained?
Chained is pronounced /t͡ʃeɪnd/.

Words near chained in the dictionary

  1. chaincase
  2. chaincases
  3. chaincode
  4. chaincodes
  5. chaine
  6. chained
  7. chained up
  8. chainer
  9. chainers
  10. chaines
  11. chainest

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: chained (page history and authors); chain (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.

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

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