Gracious

How to spell gracious

8 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce gracious

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does gracious mean?

1. adjectiveShowing kindness, warmth, courtesy, or generous good manners toward others.

Gracious in a sentence

• Our host was gracious throughout the long evening, refilling drinks and remembering everyone's name.

• She sent a gracious note thanking the whole team for their support during her illness.

Where does gracious come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This word comes from the Latin gratiosus, meaning 'enjoying favour' or 'agreeable', which was built on gratia, the noun for 'favour, kindness, or charm', itself rooted in gratus, 'pleasing or thankful'. English took it in through Old French gracieus during the 1300s, when it first described someone who showed kindly favour, especially a monarch or noble dealing generously with subordinates. Over time the sense softened from royal condescension into the modern idea of polite, warm, and considerate behaviour, the courtesy we still call good manners. The same gratia root sits inside a whole family of familiar words, including grace, grateful, gratitude, and congratulate. The spelling trap is the ending: the soft 'sh' sound in the middle is written as -ci-, and the word finishes in -ious rather than the tempting -ous.

How the word is built

• grac- (from gratia: favour, kindness, grace)
• -ious (full of, adjective suffix)