Fix

How to spell fix

3 letters · 1 syllable

How to pronounce fix

What does fix mean?

1. verbTo repair something, or to fasten or attach it firmly in place.
2. nounAn awkward or difficult situation that is hard to escape.

Fix in a sentence

• verb

  The plumber promised to fix the leaking tap before noon.

• noun

  Missing the last train left us in a real fix that night.

• verb

  They used strong brackets to fix the shelf to the wall.

• noun

  Running out of cash abroad put her in a serious fix.

Where does fix come from?

Language of origin: Latin

The word comes from the Latin figere, a verb meaning 'to fasten, drive in, or pin down', whose past participle fixus literally described something that had been made firmly stuck in place. English picked up the idea in the late Middle Ages, partly through the related adjective 'fixed' and partly through medieval Latin and Old French legal and alchemical usage, where to 'fix' a substance meant to make it stable and unable to evaporate. From the core sense of making something stay put grew the everyday meanings: to fasten an object, to settle a date, and later, by the 1700s and especially in American usage, to put right or repair. The same figere root sits inside relatives such as 'fixture', 'suffix', 'prefix', and 'crucifix', all of which carry that notion of something fastened or driven into place. The spelling is mercifully phonetic, with the tricky bit being only the final consonant cluster spelled with a single 'x'.

How the word is built

• fix (from Latin fixus, past participle of figere: to fasten)
• zero suffix