Prone

How to spell prone

5 letters · 1 syllable

How to pronounce prone

What does prone mean?

1. adjectiveLikely to do or experience something, usually something undesirable.
2. adjectiveLying flat with the face and front of the body turned downward.

Prone in a sentence

• Older pipes are prone to leaking during a hard frost.

• The physiotherapist asked her to lie prone on the treatment table.

• He is prone to forgetting names at networking events.

• Soldiers crawled forward in the prone position to stay hidden.

Where does prone come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This word comes from the Latin pronus, which literally meant 'leaning forward' or 'bent down toward the ground'. That sense of a body inclined downward gave rise to two strands of meaning that English still keeps side by side: physically lying face down, and figuratively being inclined or disposed toward something. English borrowed the word in the late 1300s, at first describing a body stretched out flat with the face downward, and the figurative 'liable to' sense (as in accident-prone) grew naturally from the idea of a person leaning, by temperament, toward a habit or outcome. The root sits in the same family as the Latin pro, meaning 'forward', which helps explain why the word is about a forward, downward lean. Because the spelling is short and phonetically regular, the only real trap is remembering the silent final 'e' rather than writing 'pron'.

How the word is built

• pron- (from Latin pronus: leaning forward, bent down)
• -e