Boredom

How to spell boredom

7 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce boredom

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does boredom mean?

1. nounThe dull, weary feeling caused by a lack of interest or activity.

Boredom in a sentence

• The long delay at the airport left the passengers in a state of boredom.

• To relieve the boredom of the night shift, she listened to podcasts.

Where does boredom come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

This word pairs the verb 'bore', meaning to weary someone with dull talk or activity, with the old native suffix '-dom', which denotes a state, condition, or domain (the same '-dom' found in 'freedom', 'kingdom', and 'wisdom'). The verb 'bore' in the sense of tediously wearying a listener appears only from around the middle of the 1700s, and its own origin is genuinely uncertain; the older 'bore' meaning to pierce a hole comes from Old English 'borian', though the dullness sense may not be related at all. 'Boredom' itself is first recorded in the 1850s, and the novelist Charles Dickens helped popularise it in print. The suffix '-dom' descends from Old English 'dom', literally 'judgement' or 'authority', which is why it builds abstract nouns of state. The single 'r' and the '-dom' rather than '-dum' ending are the points worth fixing in memory, since the word sounds like it could end in 'dumb'.

How the word is built

• bore (to weary)
• -dom (noun suffix denoting state or condition)