Farthest

How to spell farthest

8 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce farthest

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does farthest mean?

1. adjectiveAt or to the greatest distance in space or time.

Farthest in a sentence

• The farthest village on the route had no petrol station for miles.

• Of all the runners, she finished farthest from the leaders.

Where does farthest come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

This is the superlative of 'far', which goes back to the Old English 'feorr', meaning 'distant' or 'remote'. The original comparative and superlative forms were 'farrer' and 'farrest', but during the Middle English period the spelling acquired its intrusive 'th', shaped by confusion with 'further' and 'furthest', which descend from a separate Old English word 'furthor' related to 'forth'. Over time 'farther/farthest' and 'further/furthest' became tangled, and many writers now treat them as interchangeable. A useful modern habit reserves 'farthest' for literal, measurable distance and 'furthest' for figurative or abstract degree, although both have long coexisted. The lingering 'th' that no one pronounces strongly is exactly the spot where the spelling trips writers up.

How the word is built

• far (Old English feorr: distant)
• -th- (comparative element, by analogy with further)
• -est (superlative suffix)