chieftain
noun
Simple meaning
The head of a tribe or clan.
Pronunciation
Say it like this:
cheeftuhnSay the bold part a little louder.
IPA pronunciation (US)
ˈtʃiftən
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.
Definition
Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.
noun
The head of a tribe or clan
A leader of a clan or tribe.
The leader of a group of people
Word at a Glance
- Difficulty
- C2 · Proficient
- Frequency
- Uncommon
Word Aura™
How this word commonly comes across.
This meaning: The head of a tribe or clan
Used this way, chieftain 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
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.
Word Family
Related forms, grouped by how they connect.
Compound terms
Established multiword terms.
The leader of a group of Native Americans.
More about this wordSynonyms, forms, origin
Synonyms
Sense: head of a tribe or clan
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Words can change meaning depending on context.
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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.