Mar

How to spell mar

3 letters · 1 syllable

How to pronounce mar

What does mar mean?

1. verbTo spoil, damage, or detract from the appearance or quality of something.

Mar in a sentence

• A single careless scratch can mar the polished surface of the table.

• Poor planning threatened to mar an otherwise successful launch.

Where does mar come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

This is a native English word that goes all the way back to the Old English verb merran, sometimes written mierran, which meant to hinder, to waste, or to damage. It comes from a Germanic root shared with related forms in Old High German and Gothic that carried the sense of obstructing or spoiling something. Over the medieval period the meaning narrowed from a broad notion of hindering or ruining toward the modern idea of marking or disfiguring a surface or an otherwise good thing. Because it is such a short, blunt word with deep Anglo-Saxon roots, its spelling has stayed remarkably stable for over a thousand years. The same family also gave rise to the word mar in compounds and to the old past tense forms, but the plain three-letter spelling is the one that has survived into everyday use.

How the word is built

• mar (single root verb, from Old English merran: to hinder or damage)