Appetite

How to spell appetite

8 letters · 3 syllables

How to pronounce appetite

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does appetite mean?

1. nounA natural desire to eat, or more broadly a strong craving or inclination for something.

Appetite in a sentence

• The long hike gave him a healthy appetite by dinnertime.

• Her appetite for new challenges kept her switching jobs every few years.

Where does appetite come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This word traces back to the Latin appetitus, meaning 'a longing for' or 'a desire'. It was formed from the verb appetere, which combined ad, meaning 'toward', with petere, meaning 'to seek' or 'to strive after', so the literal idea was reaching out for something. English borrowed the word in the 1300s by way of Old French apetit, where it first described the desire for food and drink before broadening to any strong craving or inclination. The petere root is surprisingly productive: it also sits inside 'compete', 'petition' and 'repeat', all of which carry that sense of seeking or aiming. The spelling trap lives in the doubled p of 'app' followed by a single p in the middle, plus the unstressed final '-ite' that sounds like 'it'.

How the word is built

• ap- (assimilated form of ad-: toward)
• pet (from petere: to seek, strive after)
• -ite (noun suffix)