Mental

How to spell mental

6 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce mental

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does mental mean?

1. adjectiveRelating to the mind or to processes carried out in the mind.
2. adjectiveIn informal British and Commonwealth usage, wild, irrational, or extremely excited.

Mental in a sentence

• The cashier did the addition with quick mental arithmetic.

• The crowd went absolutely mental when the home side scored.

• Long working hours can take a serious mental toll on staff.

• Driving across the city at rush hour is completely mental.

Where does mental come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This word traces back to the Latin noun mens, with the stem ment-, meaning 'mind' or 'reasoning faculty'. From it grew the Late Latin adjective mentalis, meaning 'of or relating to the mind', which English took up through Old French in the fifteenth century. The original sense, things happening within the intellect rather than the body, has stayed remarkably stable across six centuries. The same Latin root sits inside a whole family of relatives such as 'mention', 'comment', 'demented', and even 'mind' itself in a distant way. The spelling is unusually faithful to its source, since the ment- stem survives intact, which is why the word rarely troubles writers beyond remembering the plain -al ending.

How the word is built

• ment- (from Latin mens, mentis: mind)
• -al (adjective suffix: relating to)