Affirm

How to spell affirm

6 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce affirm

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does affirm mean?

1. verbTo state firmly and positively that something is true.
2. verbTo uphold a lower court's judgment or decision on appeal.

Affirm in a sentence

• The witnesses affirm that the contract was signed in their presence.

• The appeals court will affirm the original ruling if the evidence holds.

• Company executives affirm their commitment to the project at every meeting.

• The judges chose to affirm the verdict rather than order a retrial.

Where does affirm come from?

Language of origin: Latin

Affirm comes from the Latin verb affirmare, meaning 'to make steady' or 'to assert as true', which was built from the prefix ad- 'to, toward' and firmus, meaning 'strong, steady, or firm'. The literal idea was to strengthen a statement, to put it on solid ground, which is exactly how the modern sense of declaring something positively grew. English took the word in the 1300s by way of Old French afermer, and the spelling later drifted back toward the Latin form with the doubled f. The very same firmus root sits inside the everyday words 'firm' and 'confirm', so remembering that affirm means making a claim firm explains both its meaning and its single trailing m. The doubled f at the front (from the assimilated ad- prefix) is the spot most likely to trip up a writer.

How the word is built

• af- (form of ad-: to, toward)
• firm (from Latin firmus: strong, steady)