Joyful

How to spell joyful

6 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce joyful

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does joyful mean?

1. adjectiveFeeling, showing, or causing great happiness and delight.

Joyful in a sentence

• The whole family gathered for a joyful reunion after years apart.

• Her promotion turned an ordinary Monday into a joyful occasion.

Where does joyful come from?

Language of origin: French

The word joins the noun 'joy' with the suffix '-ful', which simply means 'full of'. 'Joy' itself came into English in the 1200s from the Old French 'joie', meaning 'delight' or 'pleasure', which traces back to the Latin 'gaudium', a noun for inward gladness built on the verb 'gaudere', 'to rejoice'. The suffix '-ful' is native English, descended from the Old English 'full', the same word as the adjective 'full', so 'joyful' literally pictures a person brimming with joy. A useful spelling note is that '-ful' as a suffix always takes a single 'l', even though the standalone word 'full' has two; that habit is exactly what trips writers into the wrong 'joyfull'. The word has been in steady use since the 1300s and keeps the plain French-derived stem 'joy' unchanged.

How the word is built

• joy (delight, gladness)
• -ful (full of)