Commotion

How to spell commotion

9 letters · 3 syllables

How to pronounce commotion

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does commotion mean?

1. nounA state of noisy confusion or disturbance, usually caused by sudden activity or excitement.

Commotion in a sentence

• A loud commotion broke out in the office when the fire alarm went off.

• The children caused quite a commotion as they ran through the museum.

Where does commotion come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This word traces back to the Latin commotio, a noun meaning 'a violent moving' or 'disturbance', which was built from the verb commovere, 'to move violently, to shake up, to agitate'. That verb joins com-, used here as an intensifier meaning roughly 'thoroughly', to movere, 'to move', the same root that gives us 'motion', 'motor', and 'remove'. English took the word in during the late 1300s and early 1400s, partly through Old French, keeping the sense of physical or social agitation. The literal idea of things being moved about together survives neatly in the modern meaning of a noisy disturbance. Because the spelling preserves both halves of the Latin, the doubled m belongs to com- meeting the m of the root, and the ending is the familiar -tion of so many motion-related words.

How the word is built

• com- (together, intensive)
• mot (move, from Latin movere)
• -ion (noun-forming suffix)