Finch

How to spell finch

5 letters · 1 syllable

How to pronounce finch

What does finch mean?

1. nounA small seed-eating songbird with a short, conical beak, such as a chaffinch or goldfinch.

Finch in a sentence

• A bright yellow finch landed on the garden feeder.

• The field guide described the finch by its short, conical beak.

Where does finch come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

Finch comes straight from the Old English word finc, the native Anglo-Saxon name for these small seed-eating songbirds. It belongs to a wider Germanic family: Dutch has vink and German has Fink, all pointing back to a common Germanic root that may have imitated the bird's short, chirping call. Because the word is so old and home-grown, its spelling has stayed remarkably stable, simply softening the older 'c' into the 'ch' sound we use today. The same bird family gave English the surname Finch and the compound chaffinch, where 'chaff' refers to the husks of grain the bird picks through. The word's straightforward, native origins are exactly why it has no tricky silent letters or borrowed endings to trip a writer up.

How the word is built

• finch (single root, from Old English finc, no prefix or suffix)