Monsoon

How to spell monsoon

7 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce monsoon

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does monsoon mean?

1. nounA seasonal wind of South Asia, or the period of heavy rain it brings.

Monsoon in a sentence

• The monsoon flooded the streets and delayed every flight out of the city.

• Farmers across the region depend on the monsoon to water their crops each year.

Where does monsoon come from?

Language of origin: Arabic

The word traces back to the Arabic mawsim, which literally meant 'a season' or 'a fixed time', especially the time when ships could safely sail with the wind. Arab sailors and traders in the Indian Ocean used it for the predictable seasonal winds that reversed direction twice a year, carrying vessels one way and then the other. Portuguese merchants picked the word up as monção during their voyages east in the 1500s, and it then passed through Dutch as monssoen before settling into English around the start of the 1600s. Over time the meaning narrowed from the wind itself to the heavy seasonal rains that the wind brings to South Asia. The double 'o' spelling, which is the usual stumbling point, simply mirrors the long 'oo' sound and the Dutch form English borrowed.

How the word is built

• monsoon (single root, from Arabic mawsim meaning 'season'; no separable prefix or suffix in English)