Eclectic

How to spell eclectic

8 letters · 3 syllables

How to pronounce eclectic

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does eclectic mean?

1. adjectiveDrawing on a wide and varied range of sources, styles, or ideas rather than following one single system.

Eclectic in a sentence

• Her eclectic taste in music covered jazz, opera, and old punk records.

• The cafe had an eclectic menu mixing dishes from half a dozen countries.

Where does eclectic come from?

Language of origin: Greek

The word comes from the Greek eklektikos, meaning 'selective' or 'choosing', built from the verb eklegein, 'to pick out' or 'to select'. That verb joined ek, meaning 'out', to legein, meaning 'to gather' or 'to choose', so the literal sense was to pick out the best from a wider range. In ancient philosophy the Eclectics were thinkers who did not bind themselves to a single school but selected whatever doctrines seemed truest from many systems. English adopted the term in the 1600s, partly by way of French eclectique, first to describe this philosophical method and later to describe any taste or collection assembled from diverse sources. The same Greek root legein lies behind words like 'dialect' and 'catalogue', which all share the idea of choosing and gathering, and the tricky opening 'ec-' (not 'ex-') is the spelling trap, since it preserves that original Greek 'out'.

How the word is built

• ec- (from Greek ek: out)
• lect (from legein: to choose, gather)
• -ic (adjective suffix)