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chief

noun · adjective

Simple meaning

The head of a tribe or clan.

Pronunciation

Say it like this:

cheef
US device voice
IPA pronunciation (US)

ˈtʃif

This word is pronounced essentially the same in American and British English, so one transcription covers both.

IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) is a standard way of writing speech sounds.

Word Review

Definition

Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.

noun

  1. The head of a tribe or clan

  2. The leader or head of a tribe, organisation, business unit, or other group.

  3. uncountableonly with "in"

    Headship, the status of being a chief or leader.

  4. The principal part or top of anything.

adjective

  1. Primary; principal.

Word at a Glance

Difficulty
A2 · Elementary
Frequency
Very Common
Typical Use
Everyday English

Word Aura™

How this word commonly comes across.

Aura for this meaning

This meaning: The head of a tribe or clan

Used this way, chief is a reasonably familiar word that usually carries little praise or criticism of its own. It usually sounds natural in a wide range of settings.

Emotional tone
Neutral
Formality
Neutral
Intensity
Not strongly marked
How common
Moderately common
Connotation
Matter-of-fact
Usage feel
Neutral and straightforward

Nearby words

  • gaffer , more casual, better suited to speech than writing

Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.

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Common Patterns and Combinations

How this word naturally appears with others.

Headship / leader

chief executivechief secretary

Other combinations

chief justicechief ministerchief engineerpolice chiefchief judgechief inspector

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Word Family

Related forms, grouped by how they connect.

Word family

Words built from the same root.

  • chieflyadverbDerived adverb

    For the most part.

Compound terms

Established multiword terms.

  • chief executivenounCompound term

    The person who holds the office of head of state of the United States government.

  • chief executive officernounCompound term

    The corporate executive responsible for the operations of the firm.

  • chief financial officernounCompound term

    The corporate executive having financial authority to make appropriations and authorize expenditures for a firm.

  • chief justicenounCompound term

    The judge who presides over a supreme court.

  • chief of staffnounCompound term

    The senior officer of a service of the armed forces.

  • chief of statenounCompound term

    The chief public representative of a country who may also be the head of government.

More about this wordSynonyms, forms, origin

Synonyms

noun

Sense: head of a tribe or clan

principalarchArchaic

adjective

Sense: primary

archmainprimaryprincipal

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Dictionary data from Wiktionary via the Free Dictionary API. Simple meanings, combinations and word intelligence are built from verified reference data, no AI is used to load this page.