Paint

How to spell paint

5 letters · 1 syllable

How to pronounce paint

What does paint mean?

1. nounA coloured liquid that is spread over a surface and dries to leave a thin decorative or protective layer.
2. verbTo apply coloured liquid to a surface, or to create a picture using such colour.

Paint in a sentence

• verb

  We decided to paint the spare bedroom a soft grey this weekend.

• noun

  The paint on the front door had started to peel after years of sun.

• verb

  She likes to paint landscapes during her holidays in the countryside.

• noun

  He bought two tins of white paint for the kitchen ceiling.

Where does paint come from?

Language of origin: French

This word arrived in English through Old French, where peint was the past participle of the verb peindre, meaning 'to paint'. That French verb descended from the Latin pingere, which literally meant 'to paint, to embroider, or to depict in colour', and the same Latin root also gives us 'picture', 'pigment', and 'depict'. English borrowed the term during the 1200s, first as a verb for applying colour to a surface and soon afterwards as a noun for the coloured substance itself. The Latin pingere is connected to an even older root suggesting marking or pricking a surface, a reminder that early colouring and decorating were physical, scratching crafts. Although the spelling looks plain, the 'ai' carries the long vowel sound, which is why the word stays steady and rarely trips adult writers.

How the word is built

• paint (single root, from Latin pingere: to paint or depict); no prefix or suffix in the bare form