Miracle

How to spell miracle

7 letters · 3 syllables

How to pronounce miracle

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does miracle mean?

1. nounA remarkable and welcome event that seems impossible to explain by ordinary means; an extraordinary stroke of good fortune.

Miracle in a sentence

• The surgeons called her full recovery a medical miracle.

• Finishing the report on time felt like a small miracle given the broken laptop.

Where does miracle come from?

Language of origin: Latin

The word comes from the Latin miraculum, meaning 'an object of wonder' or 'a marvel'. That noun was built on the verb mirari, 'to wonder at' or 'to be amazed', which in turn rested on the adjective mirus, meaning 'wonderful' or 'astonishing'. English took the word in during the twelfth century by way of Old French, where it had become miracle and was applied especially to the wonders worked by saints. The same mirari root still lives inside everyday relatives such as 'admire', 'mirror', and 'marvel', all of which trace back to the act of looking at something with astonishment. The spelling trap is the unstressed middle: the 'i' is clearly heard but the ending sounds like '-uh-cle', so writers must remember the -acle suffix rather than the more common -icle seen in words like 'article'.

How the word is built

• mir- (from Latin mirari: to wonder at)
• -acle (noun suffix from Latin -aculum: a means or result)