Marrow

How to spell marrow

6 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce marrow

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does marrow mean?

1. nounThe soft, fatty tissue inside bones, where blood cells are produced.
2. nounA long green vegetable from the squash family, eaten when large and mature.

Marrow in a sentence

• The surgeon harvested healthy marrow from the donor's hip.

• She grew an enormous marrow on the allotment over the summer.

• A transplant of marrow can treat certain blood disorders.

• The recipe calls for a stuffed marrow baked with herbs and rice.

Where does marrow come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

Marrow comes from the Old English word mearg, sometimes written mearh, which named the soft fatty tissue inside bones. It traces back to a shared Germanic ancestor, related to the Old High German marg and the modern German Mark, all carrying the same sense of the rich inner substance of a bone. The word is genuinely ancient and native to English rather than borrowed, which is why its spelling does not follow any Latin or French pattern. From early on it also carried a figurative sense of the innermost, most essential part of something, surviving in the old phrase 'the marrow of the matter'. The vegetable meaning is much later and British: a large marrow was so named because its soft, pulpy interior reminded people of the rich inner flesh that the word had always described. The double r and the -ow ending are the spelling traps, both holdovers from its Old English form.

How the word is built

• marrow (from Old English mearg: the soft tissue inside bone); a single, indivisible native root with no prefix or suffix