Enough

How to spell enough

6 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce enough

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does enough mean?

1. determinerAs much or as many as is needed or wanted; to the required degree.

Enough in a sentence

• We have enough food for everyone.

• I've had enough of this nonsense.

Where does enough come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

The word descends from Old English genog, meaning 'sufficient' or 'plenty', which itself goes back to a widespread Germanic ancestor reconstructed as ganoga; cousins survive in modern German 'genug' and Dutch 'genoeg'. The original sense was simply 'reached, attained to', the idea being that a supply had reached the amount required. Over the medieval centuries the initial 'ge-' prefix wore away, as it did in many English words, leaving the plain 'enough' we use today. The deceptive part is the ending: the 'gh' once stood for a throaty consonant that English speakers later pronounced as an 'f' sound, so the spelling preserves a letter combination that no longer matches how the word sounds. That mismatch between the spoken 'enuff' and the written 'enough' is exactly why the word trips people up in writing.

How the word is built

• enough (single Old English root genog; no separable prefix or suffix in modern English)