Grammatical

How to spell grammatical

11 letters · 4 syllables

How to pronounce grammatical

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does grammatical mean?

1. adjectiveConforming to the accepted rules of grammar, or relating to grammar.

Grammatical in a sentence

• The editor checked every sentence for grammatical accuracy before printing.

• A single missing verb can make an otherwise clear sentence less grammatical.

Where does grammatical come from?

Language of origin: Greek

The word descends from the Greek gramma, which literally meant 'a letter of the alphabet' or, more broadly, 'something written', from the verb graphein 'to write'. From gramma came grammatike (techne), 'the art of letters', the discipline of reading, writing and the rules of language. Latin took this in as grammatica and later formed the adjective grammaticalis, 'relating to grammar', which passed through French as grammatical before settling into English in the 1500s. The same gramma root shows up in a crowd of relatives such as 'grammar', 'diagram', 'telegram' and 'anagram', all of them tied to writing or letters. The doubled m in the middle, easy to drop in writing, is the lingering fingerprint of that original Greek gramma.

How the word is built

• grammat- (from Greek gramma: a letter, something written)
• -ical (adjective suffix)