Safest

How to spell safest

6 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce safest

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does safest mean?

1. adjectiveMost free from harm, risk, or danger; offering the greatest security.

Safest in a sentence

• The back stairwell is the safest route out of the building during a fire.

• Keeping your passwords in a manager is one of the safest habits online.

Where does safest come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This is the superlative form of the adjective 'safe', which English took from Old French 'sauf', meaning 'unharmed' or 'secure'. That French word descended from the Latin 'salvus', which literally meant 'uninjured', 'healthy', or 'whole', the same root that gives us 'salvage', 'salvation', and 'salutary'. The word entered English in the 1200s, and by the time it took the regular '-est' ending to mark the highest degree, the spelling had settled with a silent final 'e' on 'safe' that is dropped before the suffix. That dropping is exactly the small trap here: writers must remember it becomes 'safest', not 'safeest'. The native '-est' suffix itself is an old Germanic ending used for centuries to form superlatives like 'fastest' and 'brightest'.

How the word is built

• safe (from Latin salvus: uninjured, whole)
• -est (superlative suffix)