Patent

How to spell patent

6 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce patent

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does patent mean?

1. nounAn official right granting an inventor exclusive use of an invention for a set period.
2. verbTo obtain an official exclusive right over an invention.
3. adjectiveClearly visible or obvious to everyone.

Patent in a sentence

• noun

  The startup filed a patent to protect its new battery design.

• verb

  They rushed to patent the device before a competitor could copy it.

• adjective

  His excuse was a patent lie that no one believed.

• noun

  Her company holds the patent on a popular kitchen gadget.

• verb

  The inventor decided to patent his folding bicycle frame.

• adjective

  The report exposed the patent unfairness in the pay system.

Where does patent come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This word traces back to the Latin verb patere, which literally meant 'to lie open' or 'to be exposed', the same root that gives us 'patio' and the medical sense of a blood vessel being 'patent' or unobstructed. Its modern legal life began with the medieval Latin phrase litterae patentes, meaning 'open letters', official documents from a monarch that were issued unsealed so that anyone could read them and see the rights or privileges being granted. English took this up through Old French in the 1300s as 'letters patent', and over time the noun 'patent' on its own came to mean the exclusive right granted to an inventor. The everyday adjective 'patent', meaning plainly obvious, kept much closer to the original Latin idea of something lying open to view. Because the word always ends in -ent rather than -ant, remembering its link to 'open' present participles like 'apparent' helps fix the spelling.

How the word is built

• pat- (from Latin patere: to lie open)
• -ent (present-participle/adjective suffix)