Labyrinth

How to spell labyrinth

9 letters · 3 syllables

How to pronounce labyrinth

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does labyrinth mean?

1. nounA complex network of winding paths or passages in which it is easy to become lost.
2. nounAn intricate or confusing arrangement of rules, facts, or procedures.

Labyrinth in a sentence

• The old palace had a stone labyrinth in its walled garden.

• The new tax code felt like a labyrinth of exemptions and clauses.

• Tourists wandered the labyrinth of narrow streets in the old town.

• She navigated the labyrinth of hospital paperwork for weeks.

Where does labyrinth come from?

Language of origin: Greek

The word comes from the ancient Greek labyrinthos, the name given to the vast maze said to have been built at Knossos in Crete to imprison the half-bull, half-man Minotaur. The Greek term may itself be pre-Greek and possibly Anatolian in origin, perhaps connected to labrys, a double-headed axe that was an important symbol in Minoan culture, though scholars are not certain of that link. Latin adopted the word as labyrinthus, and it passed into English through Old French and Latin in the late 1300s, at first meaning literally a maze and soon also any bewildering, intricate arrangement. By the 1500s anatomists had borrowed it for the coiled cavities of the inner ear. The tricky spelling preserves the Greek vowels almost intact: the unexpected y in the middle and the -inth ending both come straight from labyrinthos, which is exactly where adult spellers tend to slip.

How the word is built

• labyrinth- (from Greek labyrinthos: a structure of winding passages)