Mobile

How to spell mobile

6 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce mobile

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does mobile mean?

1. adjectiveAble to move or be moved freely from one place to another.
2. nounA portable telephone, the usual British term for what Americans call a cell phone.
3. nounA decorative hanging structure of balanced shapes that move in the air currents.

Mobile in a sentence

• adjective

  After the surgery she was fully mobile within a week.

• noun

  She left her mobile charging on the kitchen counter all morning.

• noun

  A colourful mobile of paper stars turned slowly above the cot.

• adjective

  The company set up a mobile clinic that travels between rural towns.

• noun

  The signal was so weak that his mobile kept dropping calls.

• noun

  The gallery displayed a wire mobile designed by a famous sculptor.

Where does mobile come from?

Language of origin: Latin

The word comes from the Latin mobilis, meaning 'movable' or 'easy to move', which was a contraction of an earlier movibilis built on the verb movere, 'to move'. English took it in through French during the late 1400s, at first as a rather technical adjective describing things capable of motion. For centuries it stayed close to that literal sense, and only in the twentieth century did it branch into new uses: the hanging artwork of balanced shapes, then the portable telephone that British speakers shortened from 'mobile phone'. The same movere root sits inside a whole family of relatives such as 'motion', 'motor', 'remove' and 'mobilise', which is a useful reminder that the spelling keeps the single 'b' and the '-ile' ending rather than doubling anything. Because the British and American voices stress and sound the final syllable so differently, the spelling is identical even though the word is said in two quite distinct ways.

How the word is built

• mob- (from movere: to move)
• -ile (adjective suffix: capable of)