Ambassador

How to spell ambassador

10 letters · 4 syllables

How to pronounce ambassador

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does ambassador mean?

1. nounA senior official who represents their country in a foreign nation.
2. nounA person chosen to promote or represent an organisation, brand, or cause.

Ambassador in a sentence

• The ambassador presented her credentials at the palace.

• The charity named the athlete as its global ambassador for clean water.

• The foreign ambassador was summoned to explain the trade dispute.

• The company appointed a brand ambassador to attend its launch events.

Where does ambassador come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This word travelled a long way before settling into English. Its ultimate root is the Latin ambactus, meaning 'servant' or 'vassal', a term the Romans themselves are thought to have borrowed from Gaulish (a Celtic language), where it described a dependent who ran errands for a chief. From ambactus came a medieval Latin verb ambactiare, 'to go on a mission', and the related noun for the person sent. The form English actually adopted came through Old French ambassadeur and Italian ambasciatore during the late 1300s, naming an envoy dispatched to represent a ruler or state abroad. The double 's' in the modern spelling preserves the Italian and French shaping of the word, and that doubled consonant, together with the -or ending rather than -er, is exactly where careful adult writers tend to slip.

How the word is built

• ambass- (from Latin ambactus: servant, vassal)
• -ador (agent/role suffix, from Latin -ator)