Atonement

How to spell atonement

9 letters · 3 syllables

How to pronounce atonement

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does atonement mean?

1. nounThe act of making amends or reparation for a wrong, injury, or offence.

Atonement in a sentence

• He offered to repay the money as atonement for the damage he had caused.

• The long apology felt like genuine atonement for years of neglect.

Where does atonement come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

Atonement is one of the rare English words that can be traced to a literal phrase rather than a borrowed classical root. It was built around 1500 from the expression 'at one', meaning to be in agreement or reconciled with someone, plus the noun-forming suffix '-ment'. The earlier verb 'atone' grew from the same idea of making two parties 'at one' again after a quarrel or wrong. Originally it simply meant reconciliation or unity, and only later narrowed toward the religious and moral sense of making amends for a sin or offence. The spelling trap is hidden in plain sight: once you remember that the word is really 'at-one-ment', the middle 'one' (pronounced like 'own' here) stops looking strange, and the surprising fact is that this is genuinely a homegrown English construction rather than a Latin import.

How the word is built

• at
• one (to be 'at one', reconciled)
• -ment (noun suffix)