Mansion

How to spell mansion

7 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce mansion

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does mansion mean?

1. nounA large, imposing residence, usually grand and expensive.

Mansion in a sentence

• The property developer converted the old mansion into luxury flats.

• A sweeping gravel drive led up to the country mansion.

Where does mansion come from?

Language of origin: Latin

The word mansion comes from the Latin mansio, in its accusative form mansionem, which meant a stopping place or lodging, literally a place where one stays. It was built on the verb manere, meaning to stay or to remain, so the original idea was simply somewhere to dwell or rest on a journey rather than a grand house. English picked the word up from Old French in the 1300s, where it carried the sense of a dwelling or residence. Over the following centuries the meaning swelled in scale, until by the modern era a mansion specifically suggested a large, impressive house. The same Latin root manere survives in relatives such as permanent (staying through) and remain, and noticing the buried mans- helps explain the otherwise tricky -sion ending rather than -tion.

How the word is built

• mans- (from manere: to stay, remain)
• -ion (noun suffix denoting the result of an action)