Solve

How to spell solve

5 letters · 1 syllable

How to pronounce solve

What does solve mean?

1. verbTo find the answer to or deal successfully with a problem or difficulty.

Solve in a sentence

• The engineers worked all night to solve the software fault.

• A calm approach often helps you solve a dispute at work.

Where does solve come from?

Language of origin: Latin

Solve comes from the Latin verb solvere, which literally meant 'to loosen, untie, or release', formed from the prefix se- (meaning 'apart') and luere ('to loosen' or 'to pay'). In Roman usage solvere covered both the freeing of something tied up and the settling of a debt, since paying off an obligation was felt as loosening a binding tie. English adopted the word in the fifteenth century, at first in the sense of dispersing or dissolving, before it settled into its modern meaning of working out the answer to a problem. The same Latin root branches into a whole family of English words, including 'dissolve', 'resolve', 'absolve', and 'solution', and that shared origin is why the spelling keeps the tidy sol- stem rather than anything more phonetic. Knowing it means 'to loosen' is a neat way to remember the single l and the silent e at the end.

How the word is built

• sol- (from solvere: to loosen, release)
• -ve