Amphibious

How to spell amphibious

10 letters · 4 syllables

How to pronounce amphibious

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does amphibious mean?

1. adjectiveAble to operate or live both on land and in water.

Amphibious in a sentence

• The army deployed an amphibious vehicle that could cross the river and climb the bank.

• Frogs are amphibious animals that begin life in water and later move onto land.

Where does amphibious come from?

Language of origin: Greek

This word traces back to the Greek amphibios, which literally meant 'living a double life' or 'living both ways'. It was built from amphi, meaning 'both' or 'on both sides', and bios, meaning 'life', the same root that gives us 'biology' and 'biography'. The original idea was of a creature able to live both in water and on land, like a frog or a newt. English adopted the term in the seventeenth century, at first describing such dual-living animals, and later extending it to vehicles and military operations that work both on water and on land. The spelling trap lives in that hidden Greek seam: the 'ph' sounds like an 'f' but is written as a 'ph' because of the Greek origin, and the unstressed middle vowels are easy to scramble.

How the word is built

• amphi- (both/on both sides)
• bi(o) (from bios: life)
• -ous (adjective suffix)