Hemp

How to spell hemp

4 letters · 1 syllable

How to pronounce hemp

What does hemp mean?

1. nounA tall plant of the cannabis family grown for its tough fibre and seeds, and the strong material made from it.

Hemp in a sentence

• The old ship's rigging was made from twisted hemp rope.

• The farmer planted a field of hemp for its strong fibre and oily seeds.

Where does hemp come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

Hemp is a genuinely old native English word, recorded in Old English as hænep, the name for the tall plant grown for its strong fibre. It descends from Proto-Germanic hanapiz, and you can still see its cousins in the German Hanf and the Dutch hennep. Although it is a Germanic word, it belongs to a much wider ancient family that also produced the Greek kannabis and the Latin cannabis, the source of the modern botanical name. Over many centuries the spelling smoothed from hænep down to the tidy four letters we use today, and the sense narrowed to the fibre plant and the rope, cloth, and cordage made from it. The simple, almost phonetic spelling is exactly why the word gives fluent adults little trouble.

How the word is built

• hemp (single root, from Old English hænep, a plant name; no prefix or suffix)