Original

How to spell original

8 letters · 4 syllables

How to pronounce original

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does original mean?

1. adjectiveExisting from the beginning, or being the first and earliest form of something.
2. adjectiveFresh and inventive; not copied or derived from anything else.
3. nounThe first version of a work or document, from which copies are made.

Original in a sentence

• adjective

  The museum still holds the original manuscript signed by the author.

• adjective

  The judges praised her original approach to the marketing brief.

• noun

  The gallery displays the original while prints hang in the gift shop.

• adjective

  We restored the house to its original floor plan from the 1920s.

• adjective

  His thesis offered a genuinely original argument the field had not seen before.

• noun

  Please sign the original and keep the photocopy for your records.

Where does original come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This word traces back to the Latin noun origo, meaning 'a rise, a beginning, or a source', which itself grew from the verb oriri, 'to rise' or 'to come into being', the same verb that gives us 'orient' for the rising sun in the east. From origo Latin formed the adjective originalis, meaning 'belonging to the beginning' or 'first in existence'. English took the word in during the 1300s by way of Old French original, at first describing something that existed from the very start. Over time it broadened to cover two ideas we still use today: something that is the earliest version, and something that is freshly inventive rather than copied. The single 'g' and the unstressed 'i' in the middle (orig-I-nal) are the usual stumbling points, since the schwa offers no clue to the vowel.

How the word is built

• origin (from Latin origo: a rise, beginning, source)
• -al (adjective/noun suffix)