Show
verbTo allow or cause something to be seen, or to demonstrate or explain it.
How to spell show
4 letters · 1 syllable
How to pronounce show
What does show mean?
- verbTo allow or cause something to be seen, or to demonstrate or explain it.
- nounA public performance, broadcast, or exhibition put on for an audience.
Show in a sentence
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verb
Please show me where the contract needs my signature.
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noun
They booked tickets for the late evening show at the theatre.
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verb
The report will show how much the budget overran last quarter.
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noun
The travel show featured hotels along the coast.
Where does show come from?
Language of origin: Germanic
The word comes from the Old English verb sceawian, which originally meant 'to look at', 'to inspect', or 'to observe', rather than to display. It belongs to the wider Germanic family, with relatives such as the Dutch schouwen and the German schauen, both still carrying the sense of looking or viewing. Over the centuries the meaning quietly flipped from the act of looking at something to the act of causing something to be looked at, that is, to display or reveal it. By the late medieval period the noun sense of a spectacle or exhibition had also developed, and from there came the modern theatrical and broadcast 'show'. The old spelling once wavered between 'shew' and 'show', with 'shew' surviving in some formal British texts into the nineteenth century before 'show' won out everywhere.
How the word is built
- show (from Old English sceawian: to look at, observe); a single root word with no prefix or suffix
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