Spirituality

How to spell spirituality

12 letters · 6 syllables

How to pronounce spirituality

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does spirituality mean?

1. nounThe quality of being concerned with the human soul or inner life rather than material things.

Spirituality in a sentence

• The retreat focused on meditation and personal spirituality.

• Her writing explores the connection between health and spirituality.

Where does spirituality come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This word traces back to the Latin spiritus, which literally meant 'breath' or 'breathing', from the verb spirare, 'to breathe'. Because the breath was thought to carry the animating force of life, spiritus came to mean the soul or vital spirit, and the related Late Latin word spiritualis described things belonging to the soul rather than the body. English took spiritual through Old French in the 1300s, and the abstract noun spirituality followed, first recorded in the fifteenth century to mean the clergy or matters of the church. Over time it broadened to its modern sense of inner, non-material life and the search for meaning beyond the physical. The same spirare root still breathes through everyday relatives such as 'inspire', 'respiration', and 'aspire', and remembering that breathing core can help fix the single 'i' in the spirit- opening rather than the doubled letters writers sometimes expect.

How the word is built

• spirit (from Latin spiritus: breath, soul)
• -ual (adjective suffix: relating to)
• -ity (noun suffix: state or quality of)