Faithful

How to spell faithful

8 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce faithful

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does faithful mean?

1. adjectiveRemaining steadily loyal, constant, or true to a person, promise, or duty.
2. adjectiveAccurately representing or reproducing the original, without distortion.

Faithful in a sentence

• After twenty years of service she remained a faithful employee.

• The translation is a faithful rendering of the original poem.

• He stayed faithful to his partner throughout the long separation.

• The film offers a faithful account of the historical events.

Where does faithful come from?

Language of origin: Latin

The first part, 'faith', came into English in the early 1200s from the Old French 'feid' or 'fei', which in turn descended from the Latin 'fides', meaning 'trust', 'confidence', or 'belief'. The same Latin root gives us 'fidelity', 'confide', and the dog name 'Fido', all carrying that sense of trustworthiness. The ending '-ful' is the native English suffix meaning 'full of' or 'characterised by', the very same one in 'careful' and 'hopeful'. So 'faithful' literally describes someone or something full of faith, that is, reliably loyal or accurate. A useful spelling reminder is that '-ful' as a suffix always carries just one 'l', even though the standalone word 'full' has two; this single-l rule is the trap that catches most adult writers.

How the word is built

• faith (from Latin fides: trust, belief)
• -ful (full of, characterised by)