Lake

How to spell lake

4 letters · 1 syllable

How to pronounce lake

What does lake mean?

1. nounA large area of water surrounded by land.

Lake in a sentence

• The family rented a cabin beside the lake for the summer.

• Swimmers gathered at the edge of the lake before dawn.

Where does lake come from?

Language of origin: Latin

The word lake comes ultimately from the Latin lacus, which meant a basin, tank, pond, or hollow that holds water. It passed into Old French as lac and arrived in Middle English around the 1200s, where it merged with and reinforced a native Old English word lacu meaning a stream or watercourse. Over time the meaning settled on a large body of standing inland water rather than a flowing stream. The same Latin lacus survives in the modern French lac and the Italian lago, and it is also the ancestor of the word lagoon. Because the spelling is short and follows the regular silent-e pattern (the final e signalling the long vowel), it has stayed remarkably stable and gives writers very little trouble.

How the word is built

• lake (single root, from Latin lacus: pond, lake)