Origin

How to spell origin

6 letters · 3 syllables

How to pronounce origin

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does origin mean?

1. nounThe point or place from which something begins, arises, or is derived.
2. nounA person's social, national, or family background from which they are descended.

Origin in a sentence

• The detectives traced the origin of the fire to a faulty heater.

• The form asked applicants to state their country of origin.

• The origin of the word can be found in an old Latin verb.

• She was proud of her humble working-class origin.

Where does origin come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This word comes from the Latin origo, with the stem originis, meaning 'a beginning, a source, or a rising into being'. That noun was built on the verb oriri, which literally meant 'to rise', 'to arise', or 'to be born', the same idea of something coming up into existence. English took the word in the late 1300s and 1400s through the Old French origine, keeping the sense of the point at which something starts. The same Latin root for rising survives in the everyday word 'orient', because the orient is where the sun rises, and in 'abort', literally to pass away from being born. The spelling is mostly phonetic, but the soft middle 'g' and the unstressed final vowel are where writers occasionally hesitate, since the ending sounds like a faint 'in' rather than a crisp one.

How the word is built

• orig- (from Latin oriri: to rise, arise)
• -in (from originem, the noun stem meaning beginning)