Itch

How to spell itch

4 letters · 1 syllable

How to pronounce itch

What does itch mean?

1. nounAn irritating sensation on the skin that makes a person want to scratch.
2. verbTo feel an irritating sensation on the skin, or to have a strong restless desire to do something.

Itch in a sentence

• noun

  The wool jumper gave him a maddening itch across his shoulders.

• verb

  My eyes always itch during the pollen season.

• noun

  A mosquito bite left an itch on her ankle for days.

• verb

  After months indoors, they began to itch for a proper holiday.

Where does itch come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

This word comes from Old English, where the verb giccan meant 'to itch' and the related noun named that prickling sensation on the skin. It belongs to a cluster of West Germanic words, with close relatives in Dutch jeuken and German jucken, all describing the same irritating tickle that makes you want to scratch. The early spelling had a hard guttural sound at the front that softened over the centuries into the modern 'ch', which is why the word now ends in the same sound as 'witch' and 'pitch'. By the time of Middle English it was written in forms like icche and yicche before settling into the short, blunt spelling we use today. The figurative sense, a restless longing or craving, grew naturally from the literal one, since both describe an urge that nags until it is satisfied. The spelling trap is small but real: the 'tch' cluster needs that silent-feeling 't' before the 'ch'.

How the word is built

• itch (single root, from Old English gicce/giccan: to itch); no prefix or suffix