Adventure

How to spell adventure

9 letters · 3 syllables

How to pronounce adventure

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does adventure mean?

1. nounAn exciting or risky experience, often involving travel or the unknown.
2. verbTo venture or take a risk, especially by going somewhere unfamiliar.

Adventure in a sentence

• noun

  Their trek across the desert turned into a real adventure.

• verb

  They decided to adventure deeper into the forest before dark.

• noun

  Booking a one-way ticket abroad felt like the start of an adventure.

• verb

  Few investors will adventure their savings on such an uncertain scheme.

Where does adventure come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This word traces back to the Latin verb advenire, meaning 'to arrive' or 'to come toward', built from ad 'to, toward' and venire 'to come'. In Late Latin the related form adventura came to mean 'a thing about to happen', a future event whose outcome was uncertain. English took it through Old French aventure in the 1200s, when it carried a strong flavour of chance, risk, and even peril, an event left to fortune. The lost Latin 'd' was later restored to the spelling by scholars who wanted to honour the classical root, which is why we write 'adventure' with a 'd' even though older spellings dropped it. The same venire root surfaces in everyday relatives such as 'event', 'venue', and 'convene', all of which share the idea of coming or arriving.

How the word is built

• ad- (toward)
• vent (from venire: to come)
• -ure (noun suffix)