Momentous

How to spell momentous

9 letters · 3 syllables

How to pronounce momentous

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does momentous mean?

1. adjectiveOf great importance or significance, especially because of consequences that will follow.

Momentous in a sentence

• The merger was a momentous event for everyone working at the company.

• Choosing to emigrate was the most momentous decision of her life.

Where does momentous come from?

Language of origin: Latin

Momentous reaches back to the Latin noun momentum, which originally meant a movement or the force that sets something moving, and by extension the deciding weight that tips a balance. That sense of a tipping, decisive influence is why momentum came to mean importance or consequence as well as physical motion. English borrowed moment in the medieval period to mean both a tiny slice of time and a thing of weight or significance, and from that second meaning writers coined momentous in the early 1600s by adding the adjective ending -ous, literally 'full of moment'. So a momentous decision is one that carries great weight, the same metaphorical weight Latin speakers heard in momentum. The spelling trap lives in the middle: it is built on 'moment', so the unstressed second syllable is spelled with an e (mo-MEN-tous), and the ending is the ordinary -ous, not -us.

How the word is built

• moment (from Latin momentum: movement, importance)
• -ous (adjective suffix: full of)