Global

How to spell global

6 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce global

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does global mean?

1. adjectiveRelating to or affecting the whole world.
2. adjectiveConsidering or affecting something as a complete whole rather than in separate parts.

Global in a sentence

• The company hopes to expand into the global market next year.

• A global change to the document updated every heading at once.

• Rising sea levels are a global concern for coastal cities.

• The manager took a global view of the budget before cutting costs.

Where does global come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This word traces back to the Latin globus, which literally meant a ball, a round mass, or a sphere; the same root gives us 'globe' and 'globule'. French speakers built the adjective 'global' on the noun for the globe, and at first it carried the sense of 'forming a rounded whole' or 'taken as a complete mass'. English borrowed the French word in the nineteenth century, initially with that meaning of 'overall' or 'comprehensive', as when something is considered globally rather than item by item. Only later, as travel and trade shrank the world, did the now dominant sense of 'covering the whole planet' take over. The spelling is reassuringly regular: keep the single 'b' from globe and simply add '-al', with no doubled letters to trip over.

How the word is built

• glob- (from Latin globus: ball, sphere)
• -al (adjective suffix)