Cathedral

How to spell cathedral

9 letters · 3 syllables

How to pronounce cathedral

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does cathedral mean?

1. nounThe principal church of a diocese, containing the bishop's official seat.

Cathedral in a sentence

• The city's medieval cathedral draws thousands of tourists each summer.

• Workers spent decades restoring the stone facade of the cathedral.

Where does cathedral come from?

Language of origin: Greek

The word goes back to the Greek kathedra, meaning a 'seat' or 'chair', formed from kata 'down' and hedra 'seat'. In the church, a bishop's official chair was his cathedra, and the great church that held that chair became known as the ecclesia cathedralis, the 'church of the seat'. Latin passed cathedralis into Old French as cathedral, and English adopted it during the 1300s, at first as an adjective in the phrase 'cathedral church' before the noun stood on its own. The same Greek hedra 'seat' lurks inside other words such as 'chair' itself (which came through a different route from cathedra) and the geometric term 'polyhedron'. Remembering that the heart of the word is a bishop's 'cathedra' helps explain the unexpected 'th' and the single central vowel of cathedral.

How the word is built

• cathedr- (from Greek kathedra: seat, chair)
• -al (adjective/noun suffix)