Barracks

How to spell barracks

8 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce barracks

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does barracks mean?

1. nounA building or group of buildings where soldiers are housed.

Barracks in a sentence

• The new recruits were assigned to the barracks near the training ground.

• The old army barracks have been converted into affordable flats.

Where does barracks come from?

Language of origin: French

The word arrived in English in the early 1600s from the French baraque, meaning a temporary hut or cabin, which the French had in turn taken from the Spanish barraca, a soldier's tent or rough shelter. The Spanish word originally described any crude hut, perhaps built of mud, turf, or branches, the kind of lodging thrown up quickly in a field. As armies grew more permanent, the meaning hardened from a flimsy shelter into the solid, purpose-built blocks where troops are housed, and the word is now almost always used in the plural. The double r and the soft -acks ending are the spelling trap, since the single-syllable stress hides how many letters the cluster really needs. A useful memory hook is that the related verb 'to barrack', meaning to jeer or heckle, grew from the rowdy noise associated with soldiers' quarters.

How the word is built

• barrack (soldiers' hut/lodging)
• -s (plural)