Armies

How to spell armies

6 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce armies

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does armies mean?

1. nounMore than one organised military force of soldiers trained for war.

Armies in a sentence

• The two armies faced each other across the valley.

• Ancient armies relied on cavalry and foot soldiers.

Where does armies come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This word is the plural of 'army', which came into English in the 1300s through the Old French word 'armee', meaning 'an armed force'. That French word descended from the Latin 'armata', the feminine past participle of 'armare', meaning 'to arm' or 'to equip with weapons'. The deeper root is the Latin noun 'arma', which literally meant 'weapons' or 'tools of war' and is also the source of words like 'arms', 'armour', and 'armament'. The spelling trap appears only in the plural: English changes a final 'y' after a consonant to 'ies', so 'army' becomes 'armies' rather than 'armys'. That same rule governs 'babies', 'countries', and 'stories', and remembering it is the key to spelling this word correctly.

How the word is built

• arm- (from Latin arma: weapons, tools of war)
• -y (noun suffix)
• -ies (plural of words ending in -y)