Move

How to spell move

4 letters · 1 syllable

How to pronounce move

What does move mean?

1. verbTo change position, place, or location, or to cause something to do so.
2. nounAn act of changing position, or a calculated step taken to achieve something.

Move in a sentence

• verb

  Please move the chair away from the door.

• noun

  Taking the new job was a smart career move.

• verb

  They plan to move to a larger house next spring.

• noun

  It was his turn to make a move in the chess game.

Where does move come from?

Language of origin: Latin

The word comes from the Latin movere, which literally meant 'to set in motion' or 'to stir'. English picked it up in the early 1200s through the Old French verb mover (later mouvoir), which carried the same idea of shifting something from one place to another. Over the centuries the meaning broadened well beyond physical motion, so that one can move house, move an audience to tears, or move a motion in a meeting. The same Latin root quietly powers a whole family of relatives, including 'motion', 'motor', 'remove', and 'emotion', each one a different shade of the original sense of stirring something. The spelling keeps its silent final 'e', a French legacy, even though the vowel sounds like a long 'oo'.

How the word is built

• mov- (from Latin movere: to set in motion)
• -e (silent vowel ending)