Rings

How to spell rings

5 letters · 1 syllable

How to pronounce rings

What does rings mean?

1. nounMore than one circular band, especially ornaments worn on the fingers or other circular objects.
2. verbMakes a clear resonant sound, as a bell or telephone does.

Rings in a sentence

• noun

  She keeps her wedding and engagement rings in a velvet box.

• verb

  Whenever the office phone rings, she answers within two seconds.

• noun

  The old oak trunk showed dozens of growth rings when it was cut.

• verb

  The church bell rings every hour on the hour.

Where does rings come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

The base word ring comes from the Old English hring, meaning a circular band or anything formed into a circle, a thoroughly Germanic word with relatives across the old northern languages such as Old Norse hringr. The sense of a sounding bell is a separate but very old strand: the Old English verb hringan meant to make a clear resonant sound, and the two senses have lived side by side in English for over a thousand years. The plural and present-tense form simply adds -s, giving rings. The spelling trap is the silent partner: the homophone wrings (from wring, to twist or squeeze) sounds identical but keeps its Old English w-, so the bare ring family never takes that letter. Keeping in mind that a circle or a sound has nothing to twist helps separate rings from wrings on the page.

How the word is built

• ring (circular band; or to make a resonant sound)
• -s (plural noun / third-person singular verb)