Baltic

How to spell baltic

6 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce baltic

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does baltic mean?

1. adjectiveRelating to the Baltic Sea or the countries and peoples that border it.
2. adjectiveIn British informal use, extremely cold.

Baltic in a sentence

• The company exports timber to several baltic ports.

• The office felt baltic after the heating broke down overnight.

• She studied the baltic states of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania at university.

• He warned that the walk to the station would be baltic without a coat.

Where does baltic come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This word derives from the name of the Baltic Sea, recorded in Medieval Latin as Mare Balticum. The exact source of Balticum is genuinely debated: one long-standing explanation links it to the Latin balteus, meaning 'a belt or girdle', the idea being that the sea forms a long belt of water along the northern coast of Europe. A rival theory connects it to the Lithuanian baltas and Latvian balts, both meaning 'white', perhaps describing pale or icy waters. The English adjective, formed by adding the familiar -ic suffix that turns a place name into a descriptor, has been used since at least the 1500s to mean 'relating to the Baltic Sea and the lands around it'. In British informal speech a separate sense developed much more recently, using the region's famously cold winters as a byword for bitterly cold weather. Because the origin of the root is uncertain, the precise story behind the spelling cannot be confirmed.

How the word is built

• Balt- (the Baltic region/sea)
• -ic (adjective suffix: relating to)