Doubt

How to spell doubt

5 letters · 1 syllable

How to pronounce doubt

What does doubt mean?

1. nounA feeling of uncertainty about the truth or reliability of something.
2. verbTo feel uncertain about something or to consider it unlikely to be true.

Doubt in a sentence

• noun

  There is some doubt about whether the plan will work.

• verb

  I do not doubt what she says about the schedule.

• noun

  There is no doubt in my mind.

• verb

  Experts doubt that the bridge can carry such heavy loads.

Where does doubt come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This word entered English in the 1200s from the Old French douter, meaning 'to doubt, to fear, or to hesitate', which itself came from the Latin dubitare, 'to waver in opinion' or 'to be uncertain'. That Latin verb is rooted in the idea of being pulled two ways, connected to duo, the Latin word for 'two', so to doubt is in a sense to be of two minds. The early English spelling followed the French and was simply 'doute', with no b at all. During the Renaissance, scholars deliberately reinserted a silent b to make the word visibly echo its Latin parent dubitare, a fashion that also gave us the silent b in 'debt' from debitum. That learned tinkering is precisely why doubt traps modern writers: the b is pronounced by nobody yet must always be written.

How the word is built

• doubt (from Latin dubitare: to waver, to hesitate; the silent b was restored to mirror Latin dubitare)