Sunscreen

How to spell sunscreen

9 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce sunscreen

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does sunscreen mean?

1. nounA lotion or cream applied to the skin to protect it from the sun's ultraviolet rays.

Sunscreen in a sentence

• She packed a high-factor sunscreen for the beach holiday.

• The pharmacist recommended a water-resistant sunscreen for swimming.

Where does sunscreen come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

This is a modern English compound made of two very old native words: 'sun', from the Old English 'sunne', the everyday Germanic name for the star at the centre of our sky, and 'screen', which came into English in the 1300s from Old French 'escren', meaning a shield or partition that blocks something. 'Screen' originally described a physical barrier set up against heat or a draught, and over the centuries it picked up many extra senses, from the cinema screen to the act of filtering something out. The compound 'sunscreen' is a twentieth century coinage, popularised as commercial sun-protection products spread after the 1930s and especially from the 1970s onward. It simply names a preparation that screens, that is blocks or filters, the sun's rays. Because both halves are plain everyday words, the spelling is regular and the only mild trap is remembering that 'screen' carries a double 'e'.

How the word is built

• sun (the sun)
• screen (a protective barrier)