Pope

How to spell pope

4 letters · 1 syllable

How to pronounce pope

What does pope mean?

1. nounThe bishop of Rome, head of the Roman Catholic Church.

Pope in a sentence

• The pope addressed the crowd gathered in the square.

• Thousands of pilgrims hoped to see the pope during their visit to Rome.

Where does pope come from?

Language of origin: Latin

The word travels back to the Greek pappas, an affectionate child's word for 'father', much like the modern 'papa'. It passed into Late Latin as papa, a respectful title applied to bishops generally before it narrowed to the bishop of Rome in particular. Old English borrowed it directly as papa, and the modern spelling settled with the long 'o' sound that gives us the single, simple syllable we use today. The same fatherly root survives in 'papacy' and 'papal', which keep the Latin spelling with the second 'a', and in the everyday 'papa' itself. Because the word is short and phonetically regular, it has stayed remarkably stable in form throughout its centuries in English.

How the word is built

• pope (single root, from Latin papa: father; no prefix or suffix)