Almighty

How to spell almighty

8 letters · 3 syllables

How to pronounce almighty

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does almighty mean?

1. adjectiveHaving unlimited or supreme power.
2. adjectiveUsed informally to emphasise that something is very great or severe.

Almighty in a sentence

• Many faiths describe their god as almighty and eternal.

• The two departments had an almighty row over the budget.

• The ancient hymn praised an almighty creator of the universe.

• The toddler left an almighty mess across the kitchen floor.

Where does almighty come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

This is a native English word that goes all the way back to Old English aelmihtig, formed straightforwardly from eall meaning 'all' and mihtig meaning 'powerful' or 'mighty'. It was coined very early as a direct translation of the Latin omnipotens (literally 'all-powerful'), which is why it carried a strong religious sense from the start, describing the boundless power of God. The Germanic root behind 'mighty' is the same one that gives us the noun 'might', meaning strength or power. Over the centuries the reduced 'al-' settled into a single L in the spelling, even though it began life as 'all', and that is precisely the trap: writers are tempted to double the L as in 'all'. By the late medieval period the word had also drifted into everyday emphatic use, so an 'almighty' row or an 'almighty' mess simply means an enormous or tremendous one.

How the word is built

• al- (reduced form of 'all')
• mighty (powerful, from Old English miht 'power')