Profound

How to spell profound

8 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce profound

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does profound mean?

1. adjectiveShowing great depth of knowledge, insight, or feeling, or being very intense and far-reaching.

Profound in a sentence

• The lecture had a profound effect on how she viewed her career.

• His profound knowledge of tax law impressed the whole firm.

Where does profound come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This word comes from the Latin profundus, meaning 'deep' in the most literal physical sense, as in deep water or a deep valley. It was built from the prefix pro-, here meaning 'forward' or 'before', combined with fundus, the Latin word for 'bottom' or 'base', the same root that gives us 'foundation' and 'fund'. So something profound was originally something that reached far down toward the bottom. English borrowed the word through Old French 'profond' in the 1300s, and from the start it carried both the literal idea of physical depth and the figurative idea of depth of thought or feeling. Over time the figurative sense came to dominate, which is why today we speak of profound knowledge or a profound silence; the buried 'found' element is a useful clue to the spelling.

How the word is built

• pro- (forward, before)
• found (from Latin fundus: bottom, base)