Horizontal

How to spell horizontal

10 letters · 4 syllables

How to pronounce horizontal

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does horizontal mean?

1. adjectiveLying flat or level, parallel to the ground rather than upright.

Horizontal in a sentence

• The carpenter checked that the shelf was perfectly horizontal before fixing it.

• The chart used a horizontal line to mark the average monthly sales.

Where does horizontal come from?

Language of origin: Greek

This word traces back to the Greek verb horizein, meaning 'to divide' or 'to set a boundary', which gave rise to the noun horizon, literally 'the bounding circle' that separates earth from sky as you look into the distance. Latin took the term as horizon and built the adjective horizontalis to describe something lying along that flat line of the horizon. English borrowed the word from French horizontal in the late 1500s, when it carried the sense of being level with the visible horizon. The modern meaning, 'flat and parallel to the ground', flows directly from that image of a calm, level skyline. Because the spelling keeps the buried noun 'horizon' intact, the trickiest part is the unstressed middle vowel in horiZONtal, an 'o' that sounds like a faint schwa but stays an 'o' on the page.

How the word is built

• horizont- (from Greek horizon: the bounding circle)
• -al (adjective suffix)