Mind

How to spell mind

4 letters · 1 syllable

How to pronounce mind

What does mind mean?

1. nounThe faculty of thought, memory, and consciousness; the seat of reasoning.
2. verbTo feel bothered, annoyed, or troubled by something.
3. verbTo take care of, watch over, or pay careful attention to.

Mind in a sentence

• noun

  A calm mind helps her make better decisions under pressure.

• verb

  Most guests do not mind a short wait at the bar.

• verb

  Please mind the children while I take this phone call.

• noun

  The puzzle kept his mind busy throughout the long train journey.

• verb

  She did not mind the extra work because the pay was fair.

• verb

  Passengers should mind the gap between the train and the platform.

Where does mind come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

This is an old native English word, descending from the Old English 'gemynd', which meant memory, remembrance, or the faculty of thinking. It traces back to a Proto-Germanic root and ultimately to a very ancient Indo-European root meaning 'to think' (the same deep source that gives Latin 'mens', mind, and the Sanskrit verb 'man', to think). In early use the noun leaned heavily on the idea of memory, which survives in expressions like 'call to mind' and 'bear in mind'. Over the medieval period its meaning broadened to cover the whole thinking apparatus, opinion, and intention, and a verb developed meaning 'to remember', then 'to attend to' and 'to object'. The clean single-syllable spelling masks one genuine trap: it sounds exactly like 'mined', the past tense of 'mine', so the silent finish has to be the bare -ind rather than -ined.

How the word is built

• mind (single root, from Old English gemynd: memory, thought)

Words that sound like mind

They sound the same but mean different things, so the meaning decides which spelling to write.

• mined: Past tense of mine: dug coal, ore, or minerals out of the earth.