Amen

How to spell amen

4 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce amen

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does amen mean?

1. interjectionAn expression spoken at the end of a prayer or statement to mean 'so be it' or to signal agreement.
2. nounAn utterance of the word 'amen', or an expression of agreement or conclusion.

Amen in a sentence

• interjection

  The congregation said amen after the closing prayer.

• noun

  The choir held the final amen for several beats.

• interjection

  He bowed his head and quietly murmured amen.

• noun

  Her firm amen left no doubt that the meeting was over.

Where does amen come from?

Language of origin: Hebrew

This word comes straight from the Hebrew amen, which meant 'truly', 'certainly', or 'so be it', and was built on the root aman, meaning 'to be firm, faithful, or reliable'. In Hebrew worship it was spoken to confirm and endorse a prayer or blessing that had just been uttered, a way of saying 'let it stand as true'. Greek-speaking Jews and early Christians carried the word unchanged into the Greek of the Septuagint and the New Testament, and Latin then borrowed it in the same fixed form. From there it entered Old English directly through church use, which is why it has stayed an undeclined, untranslated word for well over a thousand years. The same faithfulness sense survives in the related Hebrew word emunah, 'faith', and the spelling has remained simple and stable precisely because it was treated as a sacred fixed formula rather than an ordinary English word.

How the word is built

• amen (a single unanalysable root from Hebrew, meaning 'so be it'; no prefix or suffix)