Mighty

How to spell mighty

6 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce mighty

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does mighty mean?

1. adjectivePossessing or showing great power, strength, or size.
2. adverbTo a great degree; very (informal, often regional).

Mighty in a sentence

• adjective

  The mighty river carved the canyon over millions of years.

• adverb

  The coffee at that diner is mighty good in the early morning.

• adjective

  A mighty engine powers the freight locomotive up the steep grade.

• adverb

  He felt mighty proud when his daughter finished the marathon.

Where does mighty come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

Mighty is a native English word descended from the Old English mihtig, meaning 'possessing great power or strength'. It was built from the noun miht (later 'might'), which simply meant power or force, by adding the common adjective suffix -ig, the ancestor of the modern -y. The noun miht itself goes back to the same Germanic root that gave us the verb 'may', tying the ideas of power and ability together at their source. Related forms survive across the Germanic languages, such as German machtig and Dutch machtig, all carrying the sense of 'powerful'. The silent 'gh' in the spelling is a fossil of a throaty consonant that Anglo-Saxons once actually pronounced, a sound long since lost from speech but still preserved on the page, which is the chief spelling trap for the word today.

How the word is built

• might (power, strength)
• -y (adjective-forming suffix)