Map

How to spell map

3 letters · 1 syllable

How to pronounce map

What does map mean?

1. nounA flat diagram of an area showing its geography, roads, or features.
2. verbTo plan or set out something in detail, or to chart a region.

Map in a sentence

• noun

  The tourists spread the map across the table to find the museum.

• verb

  The team will map out the project timeline before the budget meeting.

• noun

  Every seat pocket on the plane held a folded map of the city.

• verb

  Surveyors were hired to map the remote coastline.

Where does map come from?

Language of origin: Latin

The word comes from the Latin phrase mappa mundi, literally 'sheet of the world', where mappa originally meant a cloth or napkin and mundi meant 'of the world'. The Romans used mappa for any piece of cloth, including the signalling cloth dropped to start a chariot race, and over time it came to describe the cloth on which charts and diagrams of the earth were drawn. English borrowed it in the 1500s, shortening the long phrase to just 'map' while keeping the sense of a flat representation of geography. The verb sense, meaning to plot or plan something out, grew naturally from the noun in the same period. The fact that the modern word descends from a humble word for 'napkin' is a memorable reminder that early maps really were painted onto cloth.

How the word is built

• map (from Latin mappa: cloth, napkin, sheet)