Scripture

How to spell scripture

9 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce scripture

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does scripture mean?

1. nounThe sacred writings of a religion, especially the Bible, regarded as authoritative.

Scripture in a sentence

• The minister quoted a passage of scripture during the service.

• She spent the morning reading scripture and writing notes in her journal.

Where does scripture come from?

Language of origin: Latin

The word comes from the Latin scriptura, meaning 'a writing' or 'something written down', which was formed from scriptus, the past participle of the verb scribere, 'to write'. English took it in through Old French during the 1300s, where it quickly attached itself to sacred or authoritative religious writings rather than ordinary documents. The same scribere root runs through a whole family of everyday English words such as 'script', 'describe', 'transcribe', 'manuscript', and 'subscription', all of which preserve that visible 'scrib' or 'script' core. Remembering that scripture is literally a 'thing written' keeps the spelling honest: it begins with the plain word 'script' and simply adds the noun ending '-ure', so there is no hidden or doubled letter to second-guess.

How the word is built

• script (from Latin scribere: to write)
• -ure (noun suffix denoting result of an action)