Sets

How to spell sets

4 letters · 1 syllable

How to pronounce sets

What does sets mean?

1. nounMore than one group or collection of matching or related things.
2. verbPlaces something in a particular position or arranges it (third-person singular present).

Sets in a sentence

• noun

  The hardware shop sells two sets of spare keys.

• verb

  Every evening he sets the table before dinner.

• noun

  Both chess sets were missing a single pawn.

• verb

  The manager sets a clear deadline for the report.

Where does sets come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

This is the plural and the third-person form of 'set', a word that traces back to the Old English verb settan, meaning 'to cause to sit' or 'to place in position'. That verb was the causative partner of sittan 'to sit', so to set something was literally to make it sit somewhere, an idea still alive when you set a cup on a table. Over the centuries the word branched out enormously, picking up the sense of a group of matching things (a set of plates) and a fixed or hardened state (cement that has set), and it now has one of the longest entries in the English dictionary. The noun meaning 'a collection that belongs together' grew partly under the influence of the Old French word sette, itself from Latin secta 'a following', which reinforced the spelling and the grouping sense. The added -s is the ordinary English ending used both for plural nouns and for he/she/it verbs, so the spelling itself holds no trap beyond remembering the single t.

How the word is built

• set (from Old English settan: to cause to sit, place)
• -s (plural noun marker, or third-person singular verb marker)