Lagoon

How to spell lagoon

6 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce lagoon

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does lagoon mean?

1. nounA shallow stretch of sea water partly or wholly separated from the open sea by a reef, sandbank, or strip of land.

Lagoon in a sentence

• The resort was built beside a calm turquoise lagoon.

• Divers explored the coral ringing the shallow lagoon.

Where does lagoon come from?

Language of origin: Italian

The word arrived in English in the early 1600s from the Italian laguna, which named the shallow stretch of water around Venice. That Italian word descends directly from the Latin lacuna, meaning a 'pit', 'hollow', or 'pool', which itself was built on lacus, the Latin for 'lake' or 'basin'. English speakers reshaped laguna into 'lagoon', adding the final letter to suit English spelling habits. The same Latin lacuna gives us the word 'lacuna' for a gap or missing piece, so a lagoon and a lacuna are distant cousins that both began as a kind of hollow filled, or not, with water. The double 'o' is the spelling trap: the word looks as if it should rhyme with 'baboon', and that is exactly how it sounds.

How the word is built

• lagoon (from Italian laguna: a pond, lake)
• -n (English spelling adaptation)