Spoon

How to spell spoon

5 letters · 1 syllable

How to pronounce spoon

What does spoon mean?

1. nounA utensil with a small shallow bowl on a handle, used for eating, stirring, or serving food.
2. verbTo convey or shape something using a spoon, or to lie closely together while resting.

Spoon in a sentence

• noun

  She stirred her coffee with a small spoon.

• verb

  She began to spoon the mashed potato onto each plate.

• noun

  Each place setting included a fork, knife, and spoon.

• verb

  The couple liked to spoon together on the narrow sofa.

Where does spoon come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

This word comes from the Old English spon, which did not originally mean an eating utensil at all but a chip, splinter, or shaving of wood. It descends from a Germanic root shared with the Old Norse spann or sponn, words connected to flat pieces of wood. Because early eating tools were often carved from such a wooden chip or shaving, the meaning gradually narrowed to the curved utensil we know today, a shift well established in English by the 1300s. The German word Span, still meaning a chip or shaving, preserves that older sense and shows the family resemblance clearly. The doubled letters of the modern spelling are simple: a single 'p' and the long 'oo' vowel, with no silent letters to trip the writer.

How the word is built

• spoon (single root from Old English spon: chip or splinter of wood)