Athlete

How to spell athlete

7 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce athlete

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does athlete mean?

1. nounA person who is trained or skilled in sports, exercise, or physical competition.

Athlete in a sentence

• The athlete trained for two hours every morning before work.

• A professional athlete must follow a strict diet and recovery routine.

Where does athlete come from?

Language of origin: Greek

This word traces back to the ancient Greek athletes, meaning 'one who competes for a prize', which was formed from the verb athlein, 'to contend for a prize', and ultimately from the noun athlon, the prize itself. In the Greek world an athlete was specifically someone who entered public games for a reward, so the idea of physical competition was baked in from the start. The word passed into Latin as athleta and then made its way into English in the fifteenth century, keeping the sense of a trained competitor in physical sports. A telling spelling trap comes straight from this history: the word is built on just two syllables of root, ATH-LETE, with no vowel between the 'th' and the 'l', even though many people pronounce an extra syllable and are tempted to write 'athelete'. Remembering the prize-winning athlon at its heart helps fix the tidy spelling in mind.

How the word is built

• athl- (from Greek athlon: a prize or contest)
• -ete (agent suffix: one who does)