Obedient

How to spell obedient

8 letters · 4 syllables

How to pronounce obedient

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does obedient mean?

1. adjectiveWilling to comply with the orders, requests, or wishes of others.

Obedient in a sentence

• The new recruit was quiet, punctual, and remarkably obedient.

• Their dog is so obedient that it sits at a single hand signal.

Where does obedient come from?

Language of origin: Latin

The word descends from the Latin oboediens, the present participle of oboedire, meaning 'to obey'. That verb was itself built from ob-, here carrying the sense of 'towards', and audire, 'to hear' or 'to listen', so the literal idea was 'to listen towards' someone, that is, to give ear to a command and act on it. English took the word in during the 1200s through Old French obedient, when notions of duty to a lord, a parent, or the Church were central to daily life. The buried link to audire is the same root that gives us 'audio', 'audience', and 'auditory', a useful reminder that obeying began as a matter of hearing. Because the French spelling smoothed the original 'oboe' vowels into a plain single 'e', modern writers see one 'b' and an -ent ending where the eye sometimes expects something fancier.

How the word is built

• ob- (towards)
• -edi- (from Latin audire/oboedire, to hear or obey)
• -ent (adjective suffix)