Chute

How to spell chute

5 letters · 1 syllable

How to pronounce chute

What does chute mean?

1. nounA sloping channel or passage down which objects, materials, or people can slide or drop.

Chute in a sentence

• The apartment block has a rubbish chute on every floor.

• The children slid down the long plastic chute at the playground.

Where does chute come from?

Language of origin: French

This word came into English from French, where chute simply means 'a fall' or 'a drop'. It traces back to the Old French cheoite, the feminine past participle of cheoir, meaning 'to fall', which in turn descends from the Latin cadere, 'to fall' (the same root that gives us cadence, decay, and accident). English borrowed it in the early 1800s to name an inclined channel down which things slide or drop, such as logs sent tumbling down a waterway. The spelling kept its French shape, which is exactly why it traps writers: it sounds identical to the everyday English verb 'shoot', yet the quiet, French-looking 'ch-' and the silent final 'e' look nothing like it. Remembering the link to a falling motion, a controlled drop, helps fix that unusual spelling in mind.

How the word is built

• chute (French: a fall, from cheoir 'to fall')

Words that sound like chute

They sound the same but mean different things, so the meaning decides which spelling to write.

• shoot: To fire a weapon or projectile, or to move suddenly and swiftly.