Attitude

How to spell attitude

8 letters · 3 syllables

How to pronounce attitude

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does attitude mean?

1. nounA settled way of thinking or feeling about someone or something, often reflected in behaviour.
2. nounThe physical position or orientation of a body or object, especially an aircraft relative to the horizon.

Attitude in a sentence

• Her positive attitude made the long project bearable for the whole team.

• The pilot adjusted the aircraft to a steeper climbing attitude during takeoff.

• The manager warned him about his careless attitude towards deadlines.

• The dancer held a graceful attitude for several seconds before the music resumed.

Where does attitude come from?

Language of origin: Italian

The word comes from the Italian attitudine, meaning 'aptness' or 'posture', which descended from the Late Latin aptitudo, a noun built on the Latin aptus, meaning 'fitted' or 'suited'. English borrowed it through French in the late 1600s, originally as a technical term in painting and sculpture for the way a figure was posed or 'fitted' into a scene. From that physical sense of bodily posture it gradually broadened to mean a settled way of thinking or feeling, the mental 'stance' a person takes. The same Latin aptus root sits inside the everyday word 'aptitude', a near twin that shares both the meaning of fittedness and the tricky -itude ending. The doubled t at the start, a relic of the Latin prefix assimilation, is the main spelling trap, since the word is pronounced with a single soft t-sound.

How the word is built

• apt- (from Latin aptus: fitted, suited)
• -itude (noun suffix forming a state or quality)