Link

How to spell link

4 letters · 1 syllable

How to pronounce link

What does link mean?

1. nounA relationship or connection between two things, people, or ideas.
2. nounA clickable reference on a web page that takes you to another document or site.
3. nounA single ring or loop forming part of a chain.
4. verbTo connect or join two or more things together.

Link in a sentence

• noun

  Researchers found a clear link between diet and sleep quality.

• noun

  She emailed me a link to the registration page.

• noun

  One rusted link snapped and the whole chain gave way.

• verb

  The new bridge will link the island to the mainland.

• noun

  The detective searched for a link between the two suspects.

• noun

  The broken link returned an error message instead of the article.

Where does link come from?

Language of origin: Old Norse

Link comes from a northern Old English or early Middle English word that descends from Old Norse 'hlekkr', meaning a ring or loop of a chain, brought to Britain by Scandinavian settlers. The original sense was strictly physical: one of the metal rings joined together to form a chain, so each link literally held the next. From that concrete image the word stretched naturally into figurative use, describing anything that joins or connects two things, such as a person, an idea, or a piece of evidence. By the time of computing it was the obvious choice for a clickable connection between documents, giving us the modern 'hyperlink', often shortened back to 'link'. The spelling has stayed pleasingly simple and phonetic, which is why the word rarely trips adults up, and its kinship with words like 'flank' and 'kink' shows the old Germanic pattern of short words ending in a hard -nk.

How the word is built

• link (single ring of a chain, from Old Norse hlekkr 'a chain ring'); no affixes