Graph

How to spell graph

5 letters · 1 syllable

How to pronounce graph

What does graph mean?

1. nounA diagram that shows the relationship between sets of numbers, usually plotted as points, bars, or lines.
2. verbTo plot or represent a set of values as a diagram of points or lines.

Graph in a sentence

• noun

  The sales graph showed a steady rise over the quarter.

• verb

  The software can graph the data automatically once you import it.

• noun

  She plotted the temperature readings on a line graph.

• verb

  Students learned to graph each equation on the same set of axes.

Where does graph come from?

Language of origin: Greek

The word goes back to the Greek verb graphein, which literally meant 'to write, scratch, or draw', the same root that sits inside familiar words like 'photograph', 'autograph', and 'paragraph'. In English, 'graph' began as a clipped form of 'graphic formula', a phrase used by mathematicians in the 1870s for a diagram that displays the relationship between quantities. From that technical origin it quickly broadened into the everyday word for any chart of plotted points or lines. The short, blunt spelling preserves the Greek combining form -graph, where the 'ph' represents the Greek letter phi and explains why the word ends in an 'f' sound spelled 'ph'. That single trap, the 'ph' rather than a plain 'f', is essentially the only thing a confident adult writer needs to watch for.

How the word is built

• graph (from Greek graphein: to write, draw)