Semis

How to spell semis

5 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce semis

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does semis mean?

1. nounThe semi-final rounds of a sporting competition or tournament.
2. nounSemi-detached houses; pairs of homes that share one common wall.
3. nounSemi-trailer trucks; large articulated lorries used for freight.

Semis in a sentence

• The home team reached the semis for the first time in a decade.

• The developer is building a row of modern semis on the old playing field.

• Long lines of semis idled at the border crossing for hours.

• Both semis will be played on the same afternoon this year.

• Three-bedroom semis in this suburb sell quickly to young families.

• The rest stop had wide bays designed for semis hauling produce.

Where does semis come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This is the plural of the clipped noun 'semi', which is itself a shortening of various longer words that begin with the prefix 'semi-'. That prefix comes straight from Latin 'semi-', meaning 'half' or 'partly', a relative of the Greek 'hemi-' seen in words like 'hemisphere'. From the mid twentieth century onward, English speakers began snipping the prefix off and using it as a stand-alone noun: in Britain 'semi' came to mean a semi-detached house, in North America it came to mean a semi-trailer truck, and in sport 'semis' grew up as casual shorthand for the semi-finals. The spelling trap is simply that the plural takes a plain '-s' with no apostrophe and no doubled letter, since 'semis' is just an ordinary noun made plural.

How the word is built

• semi- (Latin: half, partly)
• -s (plural marker); a clipped noun formed from longer words beginning with semi-