Suspicious

How to spell suspicious

10 letters · 3 syllables

How to pronounce suspicious

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does suspicious mean?

1. adjectiveFeeling that something is wrong, dishonest, or dangerous, or causing such a feeling.

Suspicious in a sentence

• The bank flagged a suspicious transaction on her account.

• He grew suspicious when the contractor refused to give a written quote.

Where does suspicious come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This word traces back to the Latin suspiciosus, meaning 'full of mistrust' or 'arousing distrust'. It was built on the verb suspicere, which literally meant 'to look up at' or 'to look at from below', formed from sub- 'under' and specere 'to look'. The image of glancing up sideways at someone gradually carried the sense of eyeing them warily, and so the word came to mean regarding with mistrust. English took it in through Old French suspicious during the 1300s, and it has kept the meaning of doubting someone's honesty ever since. The spic root that means 'to look' is the same one hiding inside 'inspect', 'spectacle' and 'suspect', and the soft -cious ending (sounding like 'shus') is the part that most often trips up writers.

How the word is built

• sus- (under)
• spic (look)
• -ious (adjective suffix)