Moreover

How to spell moreover

8 letters · 3 syllables

How to pronounce moreover

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does moreover mean?

1. adverbIn addition to what has already been said; furthermore.

Moreover in a sentence

• The rent is high; moreover, the flat needs costly repairs.

• The report was late; moreover, several figures were wrong.

Where does moreover come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

Moreover is a transparent native English compound, stitched together from 'more' and 'over', both of which reach back to Old English. 'More', from the Old English 'mara', meant 'greater in quantity', while 'over', from the Old English 'ofer', carried the sense of 'above' or 'beyond'. The two were welded into a single linking adverb in Middle English around the 1300s, with the literal idea being 'more over and above this', that is, a further point added on top of what has already been stated. By Chaucer's time the fused form was a settled written connector used to introduce an additional argument. Because it is simply 'more' plus 'over' run together, the spelling holds no hidden trap once you see that the middle is just the ordinary word 'over'.

How the word is built

• more (additional amount)
• over (above, beyond): a compound adverb meaning 'beyond what has already been said'