Noble

How to spell noble

5 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce noble

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does noble mean?

1. adjectiveShowing fine personal qualities such as honesty, generosity, or courage.
2. nounA person who belongs to the hereditary aristocracy or holds a title of rank.

Noble in a sentence

• adjective

  Donating the reward to charity was a noble thing to do.

• noun

  The estate had once belonged to a wealthy noble from the north.

• adjective

  She had the noble goal of housing every family in the district.

• noun

  Each noble was expected to attend the coronation in person.

Where does noble come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This word descends from the Latin nobilis, which originally meant 'well-known' or 'famous', and was built on the verb noscere 'to know' (an older form, gnoscere). The idea was that the most prominent and recognisable families of Roman society were literally the 'knowable' ones, so the word slid naturally from 'famous' to 'high-born' and 'aristocratic'. English took it through Old French in the 1200s, where it already carried both the sense of high rank and the sense of fine moral character. That same noscere root is why English also has words like 'notice', 'notable' and even 'ignoble', its direct opposite. The spelling keeps the soft -ble ending that French handed over, so the trap for writers is simply that the final syllable sounds like 'bul' but is written -ble.

How the word is built

• nobil- (from Latin nobilis: well-known, high-born)
• -le (English form of the adjective ending)