Dome

How to spell dome

4 letters · 1 syllable

How to pronounce dome

What does dome mean?

1. nounA rounded, vault-like roof or ceiling, or any rounded structure of that shape.

Dome in a sentence

• The cathedral dome was visible from across the river.

• Engineers reinforced the stadium dome before the winter snow arrived.

Where does dome come from?

Language of origin: French

Dome arrived in English in the late 1500s from the French word dôme, which in turn came from the Italian duomo, a word for a cathedral or great church. The Italian duomo descends from the Latin domus, meaning simply 'house', because a cathedral was thought of as the house of God. There was also influence from the Greek doma, meaning 'house' or 'roof', which reinforced the architectural sense. At first an English 'dome' could mean a stately building itself, but the meaning narrowed over the 1600s to the rounded, vaulted roof that crowned such grand buildings. The same domus root still lives on in everyday words such as 'domestic' and 'domicile', and the single silent-feeling 'e' at the end, with no doubled letters, is what keeps the spelling simple once you connect it to that Latin house.

How the word is built

• dome (from Latin domus: house, via Italian duomo and French dôme)