Longer

How to spell longer

6 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce longer

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does longer mean?

1. adjectiveGreater in length or duration; for a greater amount of time.

Longer in a sentence

• The meeting ran longer than anyone had expected.

• This route is longer but far less crowded.

Where does longer come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

This is the comparative form of the adjective 'long', which descends from the Old English 'lang' or 'long', meaning 'extended, tall, or lasting'. That word belongs to a broad Germanic family, with close relatives in Old Norse 'langr', Dutch 'lang', and German 'lang', all carrying the same basic idea of great length. The comparative ending '-er', used to mean 'more', is itself an ancient Germanic inheritance still alive in pairs like 'fast' and 'faster'. A small spelling quirk is worth noting: in 'long' the final consonant is the single soft 'ng' sound, but when '-er' is added a hard 'g' resurfaces in pronunciation, so the word is said as 'long-ger' even though there is only one g in the written form. Because it is such a common everyday word, its spelling has stayed stable for centuries.

How the word is built

• long (extended in space or time)
• -er (comparative suffix)