Firms

How to spell firms

5 letters · 1 syllable

How to pronounce firms

What does firms mean?

1. nounMore than one business or company, especially a partnership of professionals.
2. verbBecomes more solid, steady, or settled (third-person singular).

Firms in a sentence

• noun

  Several law firms bid for the contract.

• verb

  The jelly firms as it cools in the fridge.

• noun

  The city is home to many accountancy firms.

• verb

  Her resolve firms whenever someone doubts her.

Where does firms come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This word descends from the Latin firmus, which literally meant 'steady', 'solid', or 'strong'. Latin passed it into Old French as ferme, and English borrowed it in the 1300s for the adjective meaning 'fixed and unmoving'. The business sense is a slightly different journey: it came through Italian firma, meaning a 'signature' (because a signed name made an agreement binding), and by the 1700s an English 'firm' meant the name under which a partnership traded, then the partnership itself. The plural and verb form 'firms' simply adds the -s ending, and the close relatives 'confirm' (to make firm) and 'affirm' both still carry the same root sense of making something solid and certain.

How the word is built

• firm (from Latin firmus: steady, strong)
• -s (plural noun / third-person verb ending)