Certain

How to spell certain

7 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce certain

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does certain mean?

1. adjectiveFirmly convinced that something is true, or known beyond doubt.
2. determinerUsed to refer to a specific but unnamed person or thing.

Certain in a sentence

• adjective

  She was certain that she had locked the front door before leaving.

• determiner

  Only certain employees have access to the secure archive.

• adjective

  Nothing about the project timeline is yet certain.

• determiner

  The discount applies only on certain days of the week.

Where does certain come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This word comes from the Latin certus, meaning 'settled', 'decided', or 'sure', which was itself the past participle of the verb cernere, 'to sift', 'to separate', and so 'to decide'. The underlying idea is rather vivid: to be certain is to have sifted matters out and reached a settled conclusion. Latin certus passed into Old French as certain, and English borrowed it during the 1300s, keeping both the spelling and the senses of 'sure' and 'a particular one'. The same cernere root sits behind a whole family of English words, including 'discern', 'concern', and 'secret', all sharing the notion of sifting or separating things out. The tricky part of the spelling is the unstressed ending, which sounds like 'tn' but is written '-tain', a clue preserved from its French ancestor.

How the word is built

• cert- (from Latin certus: settled, sure)
• -ain (adjective suffix via French)