Estonian

How to spell estonian

8 letters · 4 syllables

How to pronounce estonian

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does estonian mean?

1. adjectiveRelating to Estonia, its people, language, or culture.
2. nounA person from Estonia or a citizen of Estonia.
3. nounThe Finno-Ugric language spoken in Estonia.

Estonian in a sentence

• adjective

  The estonian coastline draws thousands of summer visitors each year.

• noun

  As an estonian, he grew up speaking a language unrelated to Russian.

• noun

  He spent two years learning estonian before moving to Tartu.

• adjective

  She developed a taste for estonian rye bread during her stay in Tallinn.

• noun

  Every estonian at the conference switched easily into fluent English.

• noun

  The road signs were printed in estonian and English.

Where does estonian come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This word is built on the place name Estonia, the Baltic country, with the English suffix -ian, which comes from the Latin -ianus and means 'belonging to' or 'of the kind of'. The name Estonia itself goes back to forms recorded in the early Middle Ages: the historian Tacitus mentioned a people called the Aestii on the eastern Baltic shore, and although scholars debate whether those were the same people, the label stuck and shaped the later Latin Estonia. The Estonians' own name for themselves is 'eesti', whose deeper origin is uncertain and may relate to an old regional name. English adopted the -ian form to describe the land's people, their language (a Finno-Ugric tongue closely related to Finnish), and anything connected to the country. The spelling keeps a single 't' and the smooth -ian ending, which is the main thing a writer needs to remember.

How the word is built

• Eston- (from Estonia, the country name)
• -ian (adjective/noun suffix meaning 'belonging to')