Humid

How to spell humid

5 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce humid

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does humid mean?

1. adjectiveMarked by a high level of moisture in the air; damp and often warm.

Humid in a sentence

• The greenhouse stays warm and humid all year round.

• Summers near the coast are unbearably humid and sticky.

Where does humid come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This adjective comes from the Latin humidus, meaning 'moist' or 'damp', which was built on the verb humere, 'to be wet'. Some older spellings dropped the initial h, giving umidus, because Roman writers themselves were unsure whether the word truly belonged to the family of humus, meaning 'ground' or 'earth'; the silent association with damp soil felt natural even if the link was not original. English took the word in the early 1500s, borrowing it either directly from Latin or by way of French humide. The same Latin root surfaces in the related words 'humidity' and the verb 'humidify', and in older texts you can still spot the now obsolete 'humour' once meaning a bodily fluid. The spelling stays reassuringly regular, with the single trap being the unstressed second vowel, which sounds like a vague schwa but is written with an i.

How the word is built

• humid- (from Latin humere: to be moist)
• -id (adjective suffix forming a quality)