Beverage

How to spell beverage

8 letters · 3 syllables

How to pronounce beverage

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does beverage mean?

1. nounA drink of any kind, especially one other than plain water.

Beverage in a sentence

• The airline offers a complimentary beverage on every flight.

• The cafe lists each hot beverage and its price on the chalkboard.

Where does beverage come from?

Language of origin: French

Beverage traces back to the Latin verb bibere, meaning simply 'to drink'. From that verb Old French built the noun bevrage (also spelled beivre), meaning 'a drink' or 'something one drinks', and English took the word over in the early 1300s. The slightly awkward 'bever' spelling preserves the old French stem rather than the Latin 'bib', which is why the word looks unlike its relatives. Those relatives are everywhere once you spot them: 'imbibe' (to drink in), 'bib' (the cloth that catches spilled drink), and 'bibulous' (fond of drinking) all share the same bibere root. The tricky middle of beverage, the unstressed 'er' that quietly slides into 'age', is the spot most writers stumble, so it helps to remember the buried verb 'bever' meaning to drink before the ordinary -age ending.

How the word is built

• bever- (from Latin bibere, to drink)
• -age (noun-forming suffix denoting a collective thing or action)