Congrats

How to spell congrats

8 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce congrats

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does congrats mean?

1. interjectionAn informal expression used to congratulate someone on an achievement or happy event.

Congrats in a sentence

• Congrats on passing the driving test after months of practice.

• Congrats on finishing the marathon in under four hours.

Where does congrats come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This is an informal clipping of congratulations, which traces back to the Latin verb congratulari, meaning 'to wish joy together' or 'to rejoice with someone'. That verb was built from the prefix con- (meaning 'together' or 'with') and gratulari ('to show joy'), which in turn rests on gratus, the Latin word for 'pleasing, welcome, or thankful'. The same gratus root sits behind a whole family of English words including grateful, gratitude, and gratuity. Congratulations entered English in the late 1500s as a formal noun, and the breezy shortened form congrats took hold in casual speech and writing during the early twentieth century. Because it is a clipping, the spelling simply lops off the tail of the longer word, which is why it ends in -ats rather than -atch or -ats with any doubling.

How the word is built

• clipped form of congratulations: con- (together)
• grat (from gratus: pleasing, thankful)
• -ulations (noun ending), shortened to congrats