Arrive

How to spell arrive

6 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce arrive

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does arrive mean?

1. verbTo reach a place at the end of a journey, or to come to a particular point in time.

Arrive in a sentence

• The train should arrive at the platform just before noon.

• Guests began to arrive at the office party an hour early.

Where does arrive come from?

Language of origin: Latin

The word arrive comes from the Latin phrase ad ripam, meaning 'to the shore', which gave rise to the Vulgar Latin verb arripare, 'to come to land' or 'to reach the riverbank'. In its earliest life the word was thoroughly nautical, describing a boat that finally touched the bank or beach after a journey by water. English picked it up through Old French ariver in the 1200s, and at first it kept this watery flavour, applied to ships making landfall. Over time the meaning broadened to cover reaching any destination, whether by sea or by land, and eventually any point in time or success in life, as in 'she had finally arrived'. The hidden -rive root is the same one that surfaces in 'river' and 'riparian', a reminder that the spelling traces back to a shore, not to the verb 'rive' meaning to split.

How the word is built

• ar- (Latin ad-: to, towards)
• -rive (from ripa: shore, bank)