Sudden

How to spell sudden

6 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce sudden

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does sudden mean?

1. adjectiveHappening or done quickly and without warning.

Sudden in a sentence

• A sudden storm forced the picnic indoors.

• The company announced a sudden change in management.

Where does sudden come from?

Language of origin: Latin

The word comes from the Latin subitaneus, meaning 'unexpected' or 'coming on suddenly', which was built on subitus, the past participle of subire, literally 'to come up stealthily' or 'to go under'. That verb joined sub 'under' with ire 'to go', so the underlying image is of something creeping up unseen and then arriving all at once. The word passed into Anglo-Norman and Old French as sodain before English adopted it in the 1200s, gradually settling on the modern spelling with its doubled d. Today it keeps that same sense of an event arriving without warning, and the everyday phrase 'all of a sudden' preserves an old use of the word as a noun. The doubled d is the small spelling trap, since the unstressed second syllable gives no clear clue that the consonant should be written twice.

How the word is built

• sud- (from Latin subitus: come up stealthily, unexpected)
• -en (adjectival ending)