Poet

How to spell poet

4 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce poet

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does poet mean?

1. nounA person who writes poems.

Poet in a sentence

• The poet spent years refining a single collection of verse.

• Every published poet in the anthology was interviewed about their craft.

Where does poet come from?

Language of origin: Greek

The word travels back to the Greek verb poiein, which literally meant 'to make' or 'to create', so a poet was understood as a maker of verses. From that verb came poietes, meaning 'a maker' or 'a composer', which passed into Latin as poeta. English took the word in the 1300s through Old French poete, and it has kept that two-vowel cluster 'oe' ever since, the very feature that trips writers who want to spell it as 'poit' or 'poett'. The same poiein root quietly survives in 'poem', 'poetry', and even in the word 'onomatopoeia', where the idea of making a sound-word is preserved. Knowing that the heart of the word is the idea of making can help anchor the unusual 'oe' in the spelling.

How the word is built

• poe- (from Greek poiein: to make, to create)
• -t (agent suffix forming 'one who makes')