Habit

How to spell habit

5 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce habit

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does habit mean?

1. nounA settled or regular tendency or practice, especially one that is hard to give up.
2. nounA long, plain garment worn by a member of a religious order, such as a monk or nun.

Habit in a sentence

• Checking email first thing in the morning had become a fixed habit.

• The nun adjusted the folds of her black habit before the service.

• She finally broke the habit of biting her nails when she was nervous.

• Each monk in the abbey wore a simple brown habit tied at the waist.

Where does habit come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This word traces back to the Latin habitus, a noun meaning 'condition, appearance, or demeanour', which itself grew out of the verb habere, 'to have or to hold'. The Romans used habitus for the way a person held themselves and, by extension, the way they were dressed, so the idea of bodily bearing and the idea of clothing travelled together from the start. English took the word in the early 1200s through Old French abit, at first meaning a person's dress or outward bearing, which is why a monk's or a nun's garment is still called a habit. Only later did the sense narrow toward 'a settled tendency or customary practice', the idea that a behaviour is something you 'hold on to'. The same habere root surfaces in relatives such as 'habitat', 'inhabit', and 'exhibit', and the single consonants throughout (one b, one t) make the spelling more regular than it first feels.

How the word is built

• habit (from Latin habitus: condition, demeanour, from habere 'to have or hold')