Asphalt

How to spell asphalt

7 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce asphalt

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does asphalt mean?

1. nounA black, sticky tar-like substance mixed with gravel and sand to surface roads, paths, and roofs.
2. verbTo cover or surface an area with asphalt.

Asphalt in a sentence

• noun

  The council resurfaced the road with fresh asphalt over the weekend.

• verb

  The contractor agreed to asphalt the entire driveway before winter.

• noun

  The summer heat softened the asphalt in the supermarket car park.

• verb

  The crew will asphalt the school playground during the holidays.

Where does asphalt come from?

Language of origin: Greek

The word comes from the ancient Greek asphaltos, the name for the natural tarry bitumen that bubbles up from the ground around the eastern Mediterranean. The Greeks built that name from a negative prefix a-, meaning 'not', and a form of the verb sphallein, meaning 'to cause to fall' or 'to totter', so the whole word carried the idea of something that does not slip or fall apart: firm, stable, binding. This made sense because the sticky pitch was prized as a mortar that held stones and bricks securely together. Latin took it over as asphaltus, and it reached English in the late Middle Ages through Old French aspalte, before later writers restored the classical 'ph' spelling. The same 'sph' cluster that betrays the Greek origin is the main spelling trap today, since the word sounds like a plain 'asfalt' but keeps the learned 'ph' inside it.

How the word is built

• a- (Greek: not)
• sphal- (from sphallein: to cause to fall, totter)
• -tos (forming an adjective/noun); literally 'not falling', that is, firm or secure