Absent

How to spell absent

6 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce absent

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does absent mean?

1. adjectiveNot present in a place; missing or away.
2. verbTo stay away or remove oneself from a place or activity.

Absent in a sentence

• adjective

  Three students were absent from the morning lecture.

• verb

  She chose to absent herself from the heated meeting.

• adjective

  The manager noticed that two staff members were absent on Friday.

• verb

  He would absent himself whenever the topic embarrassed him.

Where does absent come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This word traces back to the Latin absens, the present participle of abesse, which literally meant 'to be away'. That verb was formed from the prefix ab-, meaning 'away from', joined to esse, 'to be', so the original sense was simply someone or something being elsewhere. English took it in during the late 1300s through Old French, where it had become absent, keeping both the spelling and the idea of being away from a place. The same esse root that supplies the '-sent' part also lurks in 'essence' and in the related 'present', which is literally 'being before' someone. Remembering that hidden 'to be' verb helps explain why the word ends in a clean '-sent' with a single 's' rather than the doubled letters writers sometimes expect.

How the word is built

• ab- (away from)
• -sent (from Latin esse 'to be', via the present participle sens-)