Ripe

How to spell ripe

4 letters · 1 syllable

How to pronounce ripe

What does ripe mean?

1. adjectiveFully grown and ready to be eaten or harvested; fully developed or at the ideal moment.

Ripe in a sentence

• The peaches felt soft and ripe in the bowl.

• Conditions were ripe for launching the new product.

Where does ripe come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

This word comes straight from the Old English ripe, an adjective meaning 'ready for harvest' or 'mature', and it has stayed remarkably stable in both sound and spelling for over a thousand years. The root is tied to the same Germanic family that gave us 'reap', the act of gathering a ripened crop, so the original idea was firmly agricultural: grain or fruit that had reached the point of being cut and gathered. From that literal farming sense the meaning widened to cover anything that has fully developed or arrived at the right moment, as in a plan that is ripe for action. The word never picked up the silent letters or doubled consonants that trap adult spellers, which is why it remains one of the simplest words in the language to write. Its close relatives include 'reap' and the verb 'ripen', all sharing the same harvest origin.

How the word is built

• ripe (from Old English ripe: ready for reaping, mature)