Mixes

How to spell mixes

5 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce mixes

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does mixes mean?

1. verbCombines or blends two or more things into one (third-person singular).
2. nounMore than one prepared combination or blend of ingredients.

Mixes in a sentence

• verb

  The recipe works best when the chef mixes the dry ingredients first.

• noun

  The bakery sells three different cake mixes in its dry-goods aisle.

• verb

  Our new flatmate rarely mixes work with her social life.

• noun

  The producer released two club mixes of the same song.

Where does mixes come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This is an inflected form of 'mix', which traces back to the Latin verb miscere, meaning 'to mingle' or 'to blend together'. The Latin past participle mixtus gave rise to a family of related words, including 'mixture' and 'miscellaneous', all carrying the idea of things stirred into one another. English picked up the form through Old French mixte and the Latin root, and by the late 1400s 'mix' was working as an English verb in its own right, possibly back-formed from the earlier 'mixt'. The ending '-es' attaches because the base word finishes in 'x', a hissing consonant cluster that needs the extra vowel sound to be pronounced, exactly as in 'boxes' and 'taxes'. That spelling rule is the small trap here: writers must add the full '-es', not a bare '-s'.

How the word is built

• mix (root: combine, blend)
• -es (third-person singular verb ending / plural noun ending after x)