Spelt

How to spell spelt

5 letters · 1 syllable

How to pronounce spelt

What does spelt mean?

1. nounAn ancient variety of hulled wheat grown for flour and grain dishes.
2. verbPast tense of 'spell': named or wrote the letters of a word in order.

Spelt in a sentence

• noun

  The bakery sells a dense loaf made entirely from spelt flour.

• verb

  She carefully spelt her surname aloud for the receptionist.

• noun

  She stirred cooked spelt into the salad for extra texture.

• verb

  The child spelt every word correctly in yesterday's test.

Where does spelt come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

This word actually carries two stories under one spelling. The grain sense descends from Old English spelt, a name for an ancient hulled wheat, which itself goes back to a Late Latin word spelta of the same meaning; related forms appear across the old Germanic languages, and the cereal kept its name as it stayed in cultivation across northern Europe. The verb sense is simply a past tense of 'spell', meaning to name or write the letters of a word; 'spell' here comes through Old French espeller, ultimately from a Germanic root meaning to read out or recite. English long formed many past tenses with a -t ending rather than -ed, which is why 'spelt' sits beside dwelt, knelt, learnt and burnt. That -t form has stayed standard in British and Canadian writing, while American usage settled on 'spelled', and this dialect split is the main reason the spelling feels uncertain to writers who read across both varieties.

How the word is built

• For the grain: a single Old English root, spelt, naming a hulled wheat. For the verb: spell
• -t, the older past-tense ending (as in dwelt, knelt, learnt).