Prosperous

How to spell prosperous

10 letters · 3 syllables

How to pronounce prosperous

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does prosperous mean?

1. adjectiveThriving, successful, and usually financially well off.

Prosperous in a sentence

• The town grew into a prosperous centre for trade and manufacturing.

• After years of careful saving, they enjoyed a comfortable and prosperous retirement.

Where does prosperous come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This word traces back to the Latin adjective prosperus, which meant 'favourable', 'fortunate', or 'doing well', and was used to describe everything from a good harvest to a successful voyage. One persuasive explanation links it to the older phrase pro spe, meaning roughly 'according to one's hope', so that something prosperous was literally turning out as one had hoped. The Latin word gave rise to the verb prosperare, 'to cause to succeed', which English still echoes in the verb 'prosper'. English picked the adjective up in the late 1300s through Old French prospere, and it quickly settled into its modern sense of thriving, wealthy, and flourishing. The spelling trap sits in the middle and the end: the unstressed second syllable is an easy schwa to drop, and the ending is the Latin-style -ous, not '-us', a pattern shared with relatives like 'generous' and 'numerous'.

How the word is built

• prosper- (from Latin prosperus: favourable, doing well)
• -ous (adjective suffix, full of)