Jewels

How to spell jewels

6 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce jewels

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does jewels mean?

1. nounPrecious stones or ornamental items made from them, valued for beauty and worth.

Jewels in a sentence

• The museum displayed the crown jewels behind reinforced glass.

• She kept her grandmother's jewels locked in a small safe.

Where does jewels come from?

Language of origin: French

This word arrived in English in the late 1200s from the Old French jouel or joel, the word for a precious ornament or gem. The most widely accepted theory traces jouel back to the Latin jocus, meaning a joke, game, or playful pastime, the idea being that jewels were delightful, decorative trifles to be enjoyed. A rival theory connects it instead to the Latin gaudium, meaning joy or delight, which fits the same cheerful sense. Either way, the spelling preserves the awkward French sequence of vowels, which is exactly why the silent middle of the word, the e and w pairing pronounced as a single glide, trips writers up. The same Old French root also gave English the related word jewellery, and the playful jocus is a cousin of the modern word jocular.

How the word is built

• jewel (precious stone or ornament, from Old French jouel)
• -s (plural marker)