Earthquake

How to spell earthquake

10 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce earthquake

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does earthquake mean?

1. nounA sudden, violent shaking of the ground caused by movement within the earth's crust.

Earthquake in a sentence

• The earthquake cracked the walls of several old buildings downtown.

• Engineers designed the bridge to withstand a major earthquake.

Where does earthquake come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

Earthquake is a compound formed entirely from native English roots, joining 'earth' with 'quake'. The first element comes from Old English 'eorthe', meaning the soil, the ground, or the world we stand on, a word with cousins across the Germanic languages. The second element comes from Old English 'cwacian', meaning to tremble or shake, the same verb that gives us the modern word 'quake'. The compound appears in Middle English around the fourteenth century, replacing earlier phrases such as 'earth din' and the borrowed Latinate 'earthquave'. Because both parts are familiar everyday words, the spelling is transparent once you remember it is simply 'earth' plus 'quake' written as a single word with no hyphen.

How the word is built

• earth (the ground/planet)
• quake (to shake or tremble)