Gratitude

How to spell gratitude

9 letters · 3 syllables

How to pronounce gratitude

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does gratitude mean?

1. nounThe quality of being thankful and ready to show appreciation for kindness received.

Gratitude in a sentence

• She wrote a card to express her gratitude for the team's support.

• His gratitude toward the surgeon lasted long after the recovery.

Where does gratitude come from?

Language of origin: Latin

Gratitude comes from the Latin gratus, an adjective meaning 'pleasing, agreeable, or thankful'. From that root medieval Latin formed the noun gratitudo, describing the state of being thankful, and English took the word in through Old French gratitude in the early 1500s. The same gratus sits behind a surprisingly large family of English words, including 'grateful', 'gratify', 'gratuity', and even 'grace', all of them circling the idea of something that pleases or is freely given. The spelling trap lives in the middle: the unstressed syllable is written with an 'i' (grat-I-tude), not the 'e' that 'grateful' might lead a writer to expect. Keeping the Latin -itude suffix in mind, the same one in 'attitude' and 'solitude', helps fix the ending.

How the word is built

• grat- (from gratus: pleasing, thankful)
• -itude (noun-forming suffix denoting a state or quality)