Loud

How to spell loud

4 letters · 1 syllable

How to pronounce loud

What does loud mean?

1. adjectiveProducing or characterised by a great deal of sound; not quiet.
2. adjectiveUnpleasantly bright, gaudy, or showy in appearance.

Loud in a sentence

• The music next door was so loud that nobody could sleep.

• He turned up to the wedding in a loud checked suit that clashed with everything.

• A loud bang from the kitchen made everyone jump.

• The wallpaper was a loud orange that gave the room a cheap feel.

Where does loud come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

This is a native English word, descending from the Old English 'hlud', meaning 'making a strong, carrying sound'. It traces back to the West Germanic root that also gave Dutch 'luid' and German 'laut', and ultimately to an ancient Indo-European root meaning 'to hear' or 'famous, heard of', the same root that surfaces in the Greek 'klutos' (renowned) and the Latin 'inclutus' (celebrated). The original 'hl-' cluster at the start was pronounced in Old English but the 'h' fell silent and then dropped from the spelling long ago, which is why we now simply write 'loud'. The figurative sense of loud as 'showy' or 'garish', applied to clothes or colours, only developed in the 1800s. Because the word is short and phonetic, the main thing to remember is the 'ou' vowel spelling rather than 'ow'.

How the word is built

• loud (a complete native root word; no prefix or suffix)