Aerial

How to spell aerial

6 letters · 3 syllables

How to pronounce aerial

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does aerial mean?

1. adjectiveExisting, happening, or operating in the air or from a height above the ground.
2. nounA rod or wire that transmits or receives radio and television signals.

Aerial in a sentence

• adjective

  The drone captured an aerial view of the entire festival site.

• noun

  The engineer climbed onto the roof to adjust the television aerial.

• adjective

  The survey team relied on aerial photographs to map the flooding.

• noun

  A bent aerial left the radio crackling with static all afternoon.

Where does aerial come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This word traces back to the Greek aer, meaning simply 'air' or the lower atmosphere we breathe. Latin borrowed it as aer and built the adjective aerius, meaning 'of the air' or 'airy', which described anything belonging to the open sky. English adopted the form around the late 1500s, at first in poetic and scientific writing about birds, vapours, and lofty things high above the ground. The same aer root underlies a whole family of familiar words, including aeroplane, aerobic, and aerosol, so spotting the 'aer' opening is a reliable cue. The spelling trap is precisely that 'aer' cluster: the silent, almost swallowed vowels invite writers to drop a letter and write 'arial' or 'aireal', which is why holding on to the original 'aer' helps.

How the word is built

• aer- (from Latin aer: air)
• -ial (adjective/noun suffix)