Length

How to spell length

6 letters · 1 syllable

How to pronounce length

What does length mean?

1. nounThe measurement of something from end to end, or the extent of something in distance or time.

Length in a sentence

• The carpenter measured the length of each plank before cutting.

• The report went into great length about the new safety rules.

Where does length come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

Length is a thoroughly native English word, descending from the Old English lengthu, which simply meant the quality of being long. It was formed from the adjective lang or long combined with the productive suffix -th, the same ending that turns 'wide' into 'width', 'deep' into 'depth', and 'strong' into 'strength'. The vowel softened over the centuries from the 'o' of long to the 'e' of length, a common shift in such pairs. The spelling keeps the 'g' from its root long even though many speakers barely sound it, which is exactly why writers sometimes drop it and produce 'lenth' or jumble it into 'lenght'. The word has carried its core meaning, the measured distance from one end of something to the other, steadily since well before the year 1000.

How the word is built

• leng- (from long)
• -th (noun-forming suffix denoting a quality or state)