Essay
nounA short piece of writing on a particular subject, usually presenting the author's argument or analysis.
How to spell essay
5 letters · 2 syllables
How to pronounce essay
Say the part in capitals loudest.
What does essay mean?
- nounA short piece of writing on a particular subject, usually presenting the author's argument or analysis.
Essay in a sentence
-
The deadline for the history essay is next Friday.
-
She submitted a polished essay on climate policy for the journal.
Where does essay come from?
Language of origin: French
The word arrived in English in the late 1500s from the Old French essai, meaning 'a trial' or 'an attempt'. That French word descends from the Late Latin exagium, which literally meant 'a weighing' or 'a testing of weight', built on the verb exigere 'to weigh out or examine'. The idea of testing or trying something is the thread that runs through every later sense: to essay something is to attempt it, and a written essay was originally a trial run at a subject rather than a finished treatise. The French writer Michel de Montaigne popularised the literary meaning in the 1580s when he called his short, exploratory pieces 'Essais', and English writers such as Francis Bacon soon borrowed both the form and the word. Note that the closely related 'assay' (a chemical test of a metal) comes from the very same root by a different spelling route, which is why the two words look and sound so alike.
How the word is built
- essay (from Old French essai: a trial, attempt), ultimately from Latin exagium 'a weighing'
Fix your spelling for good.
Spelling Garden finds the words you personally get wrong, plants them in a garden, and brings each one back just before you would have forgotten it.
Just five minutes a day is all it takes to fix your spelling.