Playground

How to spell playground

10 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce playground

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does playground mean?

1. nounAn outdoor area, often with swings and climbing frames, set aside for children to play.

Playground in a sentence

• The children raced toward the playground as soon as the bell rang.

• The council installed a new rubber surface across the playground.

Where does playground come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

This is a transparent English compound, joining 'play' and 'ground', both of which descend from Old English. 'Play' comes from the Old English plegian, meaning 'to exercise, to move briskly, or to engage in recreation', while 'ground' comes from the Old English grund, meaning 'bottom, foundation, or surface of the earth'. The two were stitched together in the early nineteenth century to name a specific area set aside for recreation, originally often the open space attached to a school. Because both halves remain ordinary modern words, the spelling holds no surprises: it is simply the two parts written as one. The only thing a writer needs to remember is that it is a single closed-up word rather than two separate ones.

How the word is built

• play (to engage in recreation)
• ground (a piece of land)