Word.ws English Dictionary

refrein

refrein is the alternative spelling of refrain.

Meaning of refrain

Noun

refrain (plural refrains)

  1. The chorus or burden of a song repeated at the end of each verse or stanza.
    • For perhaps as much as thirty seconds they kept it up. It was a refrain that was often heard in moments of overwhelming emotion. Partly it was a sort of hymn to the wisdom and majesty of Big Brother, but still more it was an act of self-hypnosis, a deliberate drowning of consciousness by means of...1949, George Orwell, chapter 1, in Nineteen Eighty-Four
  2. (broadly) A much repeated comment, complaint, or saying.
    Synonyms:
    old saw

See all 7 meanings of refrain

Forms of refrein

pluralrefreins
alternative formrefrain

Questions about refrein

What is refrein the alternative spelling of?
Refrein is the alternative spelling of refrain.

Words near refrein in the dictionary

  1. refrangibleness
  2. refreeze
  3. refreezes
  4. refreezing
  5. refreezings
  6. refrein
  7. refreins
  8. refrenation
  9. refrenations
  10. refrence
  11. refrenced

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: refrein (page history and authors); refrain (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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Cite this entry: “refrein.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/refrein. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.