Sing

How to spell sing

4 letters · 1 syllable

How to pronounce sing

What does sing mean?

1. verbTo produce musical sounds with the voice, usually with words and a tune.

Sing in a sentence

• The choir will sing two carols at the evening service.

• She likes to sing along with the radio on her morning commute.

Where does sing come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

Sing comes straight from the Old English verb singan, which meant to chant, recite, or make musical sounds with the voice. It belongs to a large family of Germanic relatives, including the Dutch zingen and the German singen, all going back to a shared ancestor that described vocal music. The noun song, from the related Old English sang, is its close cousin and explains the vowel change you still hear between sing, sang, and sung. Because it is such an old native word, the spelling has stayed short and regular, with the only mild trap being that the -ng ending is a single nasal sound rather than two distinct letters being pronounced.

How the word is built

• sing (Old English singan: to chant, to make music with the voice)