Chronicle

How to spell chronicle

9 letters · 3 syllables

How to pronounce chronicle

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does chronicle mean?

1. nounA written account of events presented in the order in which they happened.
2. verbTo record a series of events in the order they occurred.

Chronicle in a sentence

• noun

  The diary served as a detailed chronicle of her years abroad.

• verb

  The journalist set out to chronicle the strike from start to finish.

• noun

  The museum holds a medieval chronicle describing the town's early kings.

• verb

  She keeps a blog to chronicle her recovery week by week.

Where does chronicle come from?

Language of origin: Greek

This word traces back to the Greek chronos, meaning 'time', from which the Greeks formed chronika, literally 'things concerning time', the name given to written accounts of events arranged in the order they happened. That passed into Latin as chronica and then into Old French as cronique, before reaching English in the 1300s, where it settled as a record of events set down year by year. The early English spelling 'cronicle' lacked the h, and the silent, classical-looking 'ch' was later restored to honour the Greek root, which is exactly why the spelling looks harder than it sounds. The same chronos root powers a family of familiar words, including chronology, chronic, and synchronise, all of which quietly turn on the idea of time. Knowing that the opening 'chron' always means time makes the unexpected 'ch' much easier to remember.

How the word is built

• chron- (from Greek chronos: time)
• -icle (noun suffix forming 'something concerning')