Admit

How to spell admit

5 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce admit

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does admit mean?

1. verbTo accept or confess that something is true, often reluctantly.
2. verbTo allow a person or thing to enter a place or group.

Admit in a sentence

• He was finally willing to admit that the mistake was his.

• The ticket will admit one adult to the gallery for the whole day.

• Few managers will openly admit to underestimating the budget.

• The hospital can admit a patient through the emergency ward at any hour.

Where does admit come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This word comes from the Latin admittere, which combined the prefix ad-, meaning 'to' or 'towards', with the verb mittere, meaning 'to send' or 'to let go'. The literal sense was therefore 'to send towards' or 'to let in', which is exactly the idea behind allowing someone through a door. English took it up in the late 1300s, partly through Old French, and the meaning quickly branched: alongside physically letting a person enter, it grew to mean granting entry to an idea, and so 'to accept that something is true' or 'to confess'. The same mittere root sits inside a large family of English words, including 'permit', 'transmit', 'submit' and 'commit', all of which share that single 't' before a vowel, which is a useful reminder that 'admit' itself ends in just one 't'. The doubled 't' only appears when a suffix is added, as in 'admitted' or 'admitting'.

How the word is built

• ad- (to)
• mit (from Latin mittere: to send, let go)