Patriotic

How to spell patriotic

9 letters · 4 syllables

How to pronounce patriotic

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does patriotic mean?

1. adjectiveShowing love for and loyal support of one's country.

Patriotic in a sentence

• The town held a patriotic parade on the national holiday.

• She sang the anthem with a patriotic pride that filled the stadium.

Where does patriotic come from?

Language of origin: Greek

This word traces back to the Greek patriotes, meaning 'fellow countryman', which was built on patrios, 'of one's fathers', and ultimately on pater, the plain word for 'father'. The sense was originally about people who shared the same homeland, the land of their fathers. Latin took it up as patriota, and French passed it to English in the 1500s, where 'patriot' first meant simply a compatriot before narrowing to someone who loves and defends their country. The adjective 'patriotic' followed, formed by adding the familiar -ic ending. The same pater root sits inside 'paternal', 'patron', and 'expatriate', and remembering that family of 'father' words helps fix the single t and the -ot- in the middle, since the spelling preserves the ancient patriot core rather than any double letters.

How the word is built

• patri- (from Greek patris, fatherland)
• -ot- (from patriot, a fellow countryman)
• -ic (adjective suffix)