Statesman

How to spell statesman

9 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce statesman

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does statesman mean?

1. nounA skilled, experienced and respected political leader, especially one concerned with the broad welfare of a nation.

Statesman in a sentence

• The retiring senator was praised as a wise statesman who put the country before his party.

• History remembers him less as a campaigner and more as a careful statesman who steered the nation through crisis.

Where does statesman come from?

Language of origin: Latin

Statesman is an English compound that joins the noun 'state', meaning an organised political community or government, with 'man', the ordinary word for a person. The puzzling 's' wedged in the middle is the key to the spelling: it is the genitive 's' of 'state', so the word literally describes a 'man of state(s)', someone whose business is the affairs of government. The form appeared in the late 1500s and was almost certainly modelled on the French phrase 'homme d'etat' and the Dutch 'staatsman', both of which mean exactly the same thing. Over time it narrowed from any government official to its modern, complimentary sense of a wise and respected political leader, as opposed to a mere 'politician'. The root 'state' itself goes back to the Latin 'status', meaning a 'standing' or 'condition', from the verb 'stare', 'to stand', which is why so many English words about stability and government share that 'st' beginning.

How the word is built

• states (possessive/plural of state, a political community)
• -man (person)