Both

How to spell both

4 letters · 1 syllable

How to pronounce both

What does both mean?

1. determinerReferring to the two people or things together, with each included equally.

Both in a sentence

• Both of the candidates were qualified for the role.

• She signed both copies of the contract before lunch.

Where does both come from?

Language of origin: Old Norse

The word 'both' descends from Old English and Old Norse roots that shared a common Germanic ancestor meaning 'the two together'. The Old Norse form 'baðir' and the Old English 'ba' joined with the word for 'the' to produce a fixed phrase that essentially meant 'both the (two)'. Over time this merged into the single word we now write as 'both', settling into its modern form during the Middle English period around the 1200s. The same Germanic family gives us the German 'beide' and the Dutch 'beide', all carrying the same idea of a pair. Because the spelling preserves the old 'th' ending rather than a phonetic '-thh' or '-the', it stays short and regular, which is why it almost never trips writers up.

How the word is built

• bo- (from a Germanic phrase meaning 'the two together')
• -th (forming the dual word)