Reasons

How to spell reasons

7 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce reasons

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does reasons mean?

1. nounThe causes, motives, or explanations that justify or account for something.
2. verbThinks through something logically; works out a conclusion step by step (third person singular).

Reasons in a sentence

• noun

  She listed three reasons for postponing the meeting.

• verb

  He reasons through each tax calculation before filing the return.

• noun

  The manager wanted clear reasons before approving the budget.

• verb

  The new analyst reasons carefully before drawing any conclusion.

Where does reasons come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This is the plural of 'reason', a word that travelled into English from the Latin ratio, which meant a reckoning, a calculation, or the faculty of judgement; the underlying verb was reri, 'to think or to count'. Roman writers used ratio for everything from an arithmetic account to the power of the rational mind, and that double life of 'sum' and 'sense' has clung to the word ever since. It reached English in the 1200s through Old French, where it was spelled reson or raison, meaning a cause, an argument, or good sense. English settled on the spelling 'reason', and the plural simply adds -s to give 'reasons', the causes or motives behind something. The same Latin ratio also gave us 'ratio', 'rational', and 'ration', a family worth remembering because it reassures the speller that the vowel cluster is -ea-, not -ee-.

How the word is built

• reason (from Latin ratio: a reckoning, judgement)
• -s (plural noun / third-person verb ending)