Guru
nounA respected expert or influential teacher in a particular field or spiritual tradition.
How to spell guru
4 letters · 2 syllables
How to pronounce guru
Say the part in capitals loudest.
What does guru mean?
- nounA respected expert or influential teacher in a particular field or spiritual tradition.
Guru in a sentence
-
The company hired a marketing guru to revive its struggling brand.
-
She became a fitness guru after publishing her training method online.
Where does guru come from?
Language of origin: Sanskrit
The word comes directly from Sanskrit guru, which literally meant 'heavy' or 'weighty', the same notion of weight that survives in the Latin word gravis and English 'gravity'. In the religious traditions of India that physical sense of weight was extended to mean a person of weighty importance, hence a venerable teacher or spiritual guide who carries great authority. English picked the word up from Hindi during the days of British rule in India, with written examples appearing from the 1600s and the word becoming common in the 1800s. Over the twentieth century the meaning broadened beyond religion, so that today a guru can be an acknowledged expert in any field, from finance to fitness. The simple spelling is faithful to the original Sanskrit, which is why it keeps its plain two-syllable shape with no silent letters to trip up a writer.
How the word is built
- guru (Sanskrit: weighty, venerable, teacher)
Fix your spelling for good.
Spelling Garden finds the words you personally get wrong, plants them in a garden, and brings each one back just before you would have forgotten it.
Just five minutes a day is all it takes to fix your spelling.