Omit

How to spell omit

4 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce omit

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does omit mean?

1. verbTo leave out or fail to include someone or something.

Omit in a sentence

• Please do not omit your phone number from the application form.

• The editor decided to omit the final chapter from the paperback edition.

Where does omit come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This word comes directly from the Latin omittere, which meant 'to let go', 'to lay aside', or 'to leave out'. It was formed from the prefix ob-, carrying a sense of 'toward' or 'away', and the verb mittere, meaning 'to send' or 'to let go', so the literal idea was to send something away or release it from consideration. English adopted it in the fifteenth century, keeping the meaning of leaving something out or failing to do or include it. The same mittere root runs through a large family of English words, including 'transmit', 'submit', 'permit', and 'mission', all of which involve some idea of sending. A useful spelling note is that the base form keeps a single t, even though the doubled form appears in 'omitted' and 'omitting', which is where many writers second-guess themselves.

How the word is built

• o- (from Latin ob-: toward, away)
• -mit (from mittere: to send, to let go)