Abbot

How to spell abbot

5 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce abbot

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does abbot mean?

1. nounThe man who is the head of a monastery or community of monks.

Abbot in a sentence

• The abbot welcomed visitors into the ancient stone monastery.

• Every morning the abbot led the monks in their first prayers.

Where does abbot come from?

Language of origin: Other

The word goes back to the Aramaic abba, meaning simply 'father', the affectionate term a child would use for a parent. Early Greek-speaking Christians borrowed it as abbas to address the spiritual father who led a community of monks, and Latin took it up as abbas, with the inflected form abbatem. From there it passed into Old English as abbod and into Old French as abet, both naming the man who governs a monastery. The doubled b, which is the spelling trap today, was already present in the Latin and reflects the original Aramaic word; the single t ending is what English settled on, even though the related word 'abbey' kept a different tail. The same abba root still surfaces in the words 'abbess' (the female head) and 'abbey' itself, all pointing back to that single idea of a guiding father.

How the word is built

• abb- (from Aramaic abba: father)
• -ot (agent/title ending)