Preposterous

How to spell preposterous

12 letters · 4 syllables

12 of the 26 people asked to spell preposterous in Spelling Garden got it wrong the first time.

The most common mistake is proposterous. The letters people get wrong are highlighted.

proposterous preposterous

What people typed instead

• proposterous4 people

How to pronounce preposterous

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does preposterous mean?

1. adjectiveContrary to reason or common sense; utterly absurd or ridiculous.

Preposterous in a sentence

• The contractor quoted a preposterous price for a simple repair.

• Her colleagues dismissed the rumour as preposterous and unfounded.

Where does preposterous come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This word comes from the Latin praeposterus, which literally meant 'before-behind' or 'back to front'. It was built from prae 'before' and posterus 'coming after', so the very structure of the word describes something with its natural order reversed, putting last things first. The Romans used it figuratively to mean topsy-turvy, perverse, or contrary to good sense, and English borrowed it in the 1500s with that same notion of absurd reversal. Over time the sense narrowed to simply 'ridiculous' or 'utterly unreasonable', and the original image of reversed order faded from everyday awareness. The spelling trap lives in that buried Latin posterus: writers expect the middle to sound the way it looks, but the unstressed vowels blur, and the same poster- root surfaces in the more familiar 'posterior' and 'posterity', a useful anchor for the -poster- spine.

How the word is built

• prae- (before)
• poster- (from posterus: coming after, behind)
• -ous (adjective suffix)

People who misspell preposterous also struggle with

Of the Spelling Garden players who got preposterous wrong the first time, this is how many also got each of these wrong.

• connoisseur 100% of them got it wrong
• idiosyncrasy 82% of them got it wrong