Risen

How to spell risen

5 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce risen

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does risen mean?

1. verbThe past participle of rise: having moved upward, increased, or got up.

Risen in a sentence

• The river has risen above its normal level after the storm.

• Fuel prices have risen sharply over the past year.

Where does risen come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

Risen is the past participle of the verb rise, which comes from the Old English risan, meaning 'to get up, stand up, or move upward'. That verb belonged to a family of Germanic words; its relatives survive in modern German and Dutch with much the same sense of climbing or standing. The strong verb pattern, in which the vowel changes across forms (rise, rose, risen), is inherited directly from this old Germanic conjugation rather than added by a later regular ending. Over the centuries the word kept its core idea of upward movement while branching into figurative uses, such as prices rising or a person rising to a challenge. The spelling trap is the single internal s and the unstressed second syllable, which sounds like 'rizz-en' and tempts writers toward a double consonant or a different vowel.

How the word is built

• ris- (from Old English risan: to rise, get up)
• -en (past participle suffix)