Futuristic

How to spell futuristic

10 letters · 4 syllables

How to pronounce futuristic

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does futuristic mean?

1. adjectiveHaving a design, style, or quality that suggests a highly advanced or imagined future.

Futuristic in a sentence

• The concept car had a sleek, futuristic dashboard with no physical buttons.

• The new concert hall has a futuristic design of curved glass and steel.

Where does futuristic come from?

Language of origin: Latin

The word traces back to the Latin futurus, the future participle of the verb esse, meaning 'to be', so its literal sense is 'that which is about to be'. From that root English already had 'future' by the late Middle Ages, borrowed through Old French. The adjective 'futuristic' is much younger and grew out of 'Futurism', the early twentieth-century Italian art and literary movement (futurismo) launched around 1909, which glorified machines, speed, and the coming age. By the 1910s and 1920s English speakers were using 'futuristic' to describe anything that looked ahead of its time or evoked an imagined future. The spelling stays close to its parent 'future', so remembering the -ur- in the middle and the -istic ending (not -istik) is the main thing to watch.

How the word is built

• futur- (from Latin futurus: about to be, the future)
• -ist (one connected with)
• -ic (adjective suffix)