Abundance

How to spell abundance

9 letters · 3 syllables

How to pronounce abundance

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does abundance mean?

1. nounA very large quantity of something; a more than ample supply.

Abundance in a sentence

• The region produces an abundance of fresh fruit every summer.

• After the harvest there was an abundance of grain in the warehouse.

Where does abundance come from?

Language of origin: Latin

The word traces back to the Latin verb abundare, which literally meant 'to overflow' or 'to flow over in waves'. That verb was built from the prefix ab-, meaning 'from' or 'off', and unda, the Latin word for a 'wave' of water, so the original image is of a river spilling beyond its banks. The related noun abundantia described this same sense of overflowing plenty, and it passed into Old French as abundance before reaching English in the 1300s. The 'd' before the suffix is a clue worth remembering: it belongs to the und root that English also keeps in 'undulate' and 'inundate', both of which still carry that watery, wave-like meaning. Knowing the word means a flood of plenty helps fix the -ance ending, since the noun describes the state of having more than enough.

How the word is built

• ab- (from, off)
• und (from unda: wave)
• -ance (noun-forming suffix denoting a state)