Chaotic

How to spell chaotic

7 letters · 3 syllables

How to pronounce chaotic

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does chaotic mean?

1. adjectiveIn a state of complete confusion and disorder; lacking any clear arrangement or control.

Chaotic in a sentence

• The office was chaotic on the morning of the product launch.

• Traffic became chaotic after the storm knocked out the signals.

Where does chaotic come from?

Language of origin: Greek

This adjective traces back to the Greek noun khaos, which originally meant a yawning gap or empty void, the formless expanse that Greek myth imagined existing before the ordered universe came into being. Over time khaos shifted from meaning empty space to meaning utter confusion and disorder, the sense most familiar today. English took the noun 'chaos' in the 1500s, and the adjective 'chaotic' was coined later, around the early 1700s, by adding the Greek-derived ending -ic, on the same pattern as 'hypnotic' or 'erotic'. The spelling preserves the Greek 'ch', pronounced as a hard 'k', which is the main trap: the word begins with a silent-looking 'ch' that sounds like 'k', and the stress falls on the second syllable, 'cha-OT-ic'. The same khaos root sits behind the scientific term 'chaos theory', the study of systems so sensitive that tiny changes lead to wildly unpredictable results.

How the word is built

• chaot- (from Greek khaos: empty void, disorder)
• -ic (adjective suffix)