Alimony

How to spell alimony

7 letters · 4 syllables

How to pronounce alimony

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does alimony mean?

1. nounA court-ordered allowance paid by one former spouse to the other for financial support after a separation or divorce.

Alimony in a sentence

• The judge ordered him to pay monthly alimony to his ex-wife.

• Her lawyer argued that the alimony should reflect his higher income.

Where does alimony come from?

Language of origin: Latin

Alimony comes from the Latin alimonia, which meant 'nourishment' or 'sustenance', the food and support needed to keep a person alive. That noun was built on the verb alere, meaning 'to nourish' or 'to feed', the same root that gives us 'aliment' for food and 'alimentary' as in the digestive canal. The ending is the Latin suffix -monia, used to form abstract nouns of condition, which English readers also meet in 'matrimony' and 'parsimony'. The word entered English in the early 1600s, at first simply meaning maintenance or means of living, and then narrowing to its modern legal sense: the financial support one former spouse pays the other after a separation or divorce. The spelling trap is the quiet middle vowel, written 'o' but spoken as a faint schwa, plus the single 'l' and single 'm' that tempt people to double a letter.

How the word is built

• aliment- (from Latin alere: to nourish, feed)
• -mony (noun suffix denoting condition or action)