Beer

How to spell beer

4 letters · 1 syllable

How to pronounce beer

What does beer mean?

1. nounAn alcoholic drink brewed from malted grain, hops, yeast and water.

Beer in a sentence

• He ordered a cold beer after the long shift.

• The pub served a local beer on tap.

Where does beer come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

The word comes from the Old English beor, a term for an alcoholic drink brewed from grain. Its deeper history is debated, but most scholars link it to Late Latin biber, meaning 'a drink' or 'something to be drunk', from the Latin verb bibere, 'to drink'; the same monks who brewed in early medieval Europe may have helped spread the word. It is closely related to the German Bier and the Dutch bier, which all share this West Germanic family. For a long time English speakers distinguished 'beer' from 'ale', the older unhopped brew, before the two words came to overlap in modern usage. The spelling has stayed simple and steady, with the double 'e' giving the long vowel, so it rarely trips writers up.

How the word is built

• beer (single Old English root, no affixes)