Angel

How to spell angel

5 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce angel

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does angel mean?

1. nounA spiritual being believed to act as a messenger or attendant of God, often pictured with wings.
2. nounA person who is exceptionally kind, helpful, or good.

Angel in a sentence

• The carved angel above the church door had been restored.

• The nurse who sat with him all night was an absolute angel.

• She painted a golden angel on the top of the card.

• The neighbour who shovelled our drive is an angel for doing it.

Where does angel come from?

Language of origin: Greek

The word traces back to the Greek angelos, which literally meant 'messenger', the everyday term for someone sent to carry word from one person to another. When Greek-speaking Jews and early Christians needed a word for the divine messengers of scripture, they reached for this same ordinary term, and it passed into Latin as angelus. Old English borrowed it early as engel, and the spelling was later reshaped under the influence of Old French angele to give the modern angel. A useful memory hook is the spelling trap with 'angle': angel keeps the e before the l because it descends from angelus, whereas the geometric angle comes from the Latin angulus meaning 'corner'. The original sense of 'messenger' also survives in the related word 'evangelist', literally a bringer of good news.

How the word is built

• angel (from Greek angelos: messenger); the whole word is a single root with no prefix or suffix