What does chieftain mean?
Word: Chieftain
Part of Speech: Noun
Meaning: Chieftain means the head of a tribe or clan.
Synonyms: head
How do you spell chieftain?
Syllables: chief - tain
Tricky part: The last syllable sounds like 'tun' but is spelt tain. Chieftan and chieften are the usual slips.
Watch out for: chieftan, chieften
Memory tip: Mountain and fountain end the same way, so link all three: this chieftain lives on a mountain beside a fountain.
Chieftain in a sentence
Example 1: In the story, the young chieftain settled the quarrel between the two fishing villages.
Example 2: Scottish clans once looked to their chieftain for every decision about land and cattle.
Example 3: At the museum we saw a carved wooden chair that once belonged to a village chieftain.
Fun Fact
Chieftain and captain are cousins: both come from the Latin caput, 'head', through a later Latin word for a person in charge.
Practise the CREST Way
Word Cookie
Find the misspelt word in the sentence:
Every summer, the cheiftain of the little island chose the day for the boat race and the feast that followed.
a) cheiftain
b) chose
c) feast
d) island
Show answer
a) cheiftain. The word begins with chief, which is spelt ie, so cheiftain is wrong.
Mingle-Mangle
Unscramble the jumbled word in the sentence and choose the correct word:
The ifhitncea of the hill tribe welcomed the visitors with a garland of marigolds.
a) fountain
b) chieftain
c) curtain
d) captain
Show answer
b) chieftain. Captain and curtain have no f, and fountain has no h, so only chieftain fits.
Word Connection
Choose the synonym of the word chieftain as used in the sentence:
The old chieftain called the clan elders together beneath the banyan tree.
a) servant
b) stranger
c) visitor
d) leader
Show answer
d) leader. A chieftain leads the clan, so leader is the closest word.
Spell-o-Spell
Read the four words. Choose the meaning of the only correctly spelt word:
1. tribel 2. villege 3. anscestor 4. chieftain
a) belonging to a tribe
b) a small group of houses in the countryside
c) the person who rules a tribe or clan
d) a family member who lived long before you
Show answer
c) the person who rules a tribe or clan. Tribal ends in -al, ancestor has no s before the c, and village ends in -age, leaving chieftain as the correct word.
Multiple Choice Questions
1. You are most likely to read about a chieftain in ____.
a) a book about tribes of long ago
b) a report on a new phone launch
c) a recipe for lemon rice
d) a guide to train timetables
Show answer
a) a book about tribes of long ago
2. A chieftain might be asked to ____.
a) deliver letters to every house
b) drive the school bus each morning
c) speak for his people at a big meeting
d) sell vegetables at the weekly market
Show answer
c) speak for his people at a big meeting
