Prodigy

How to spell prodigy

7 letters · 3 syllables

How to pronounce prodigy

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does prodigy mean?

1. nounA young person with exceptional talent or ability.

Prodigy in a sentence

• The violin prodigy gave her first concert at the age of seven.

• Newspapers called the teenage chess prodigy the brightest talent in a generation.

Where does prodigy come from?

Language of origin: Latin

The word comes from the Latin prodigium, which meant an omen, a portent, or an unnatural marvel: something that seemed to point forward to what was coming. The prod- part carries the sense of 'forth' or 'forward', and the word originally described strange signs that ancient Romans read as warnings from the gods. When English took it up in the sixteenth century, it first kept this sense of a wonder or a monstrous, extraordinary thing. Over time the meaning softened from a frightening marvel to an admirable one, settling on a person, especially a young one, whose talent is so remarkable that it seems almost unnatural. The same root survives in the adjective 'prodigious', meaning enormous or amazing, and remembering that pairing helps fix the single d and the -igy ending, which writers sometimes mistakenly soften to a -j- spelling.

How the word is built

• prod- (forth, forward)
• -ig- (from Latin prodigium, an omen or marvel)
• -y (noun-forming ending)