Tantrum
nounA sudden, uncontrolled outburst of anger or frustration, often childish or petulant.
How to spell tantrum
7 letters · 2 syllables
How to pronounce tantrum
Say the part in capitals loudest.
What does tantrum mean?
- nounA sudden, uncontrolled outburst of anger or frustration, often childish or petulant.
Tantrum in a sentence
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The toddler threw a tantrum in the middle of the supermarket.
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He flew into a tantrum when the meeting overran his schedule.
Where does tantrum come from?
Language of origin: Unknown
The origin of tantrum is genuinely murky, and most dictionaries label it 'origin unknown'. It first appears in English in the early 1700s, written at times as 'tantrums' or 'tanterum', usually meaning a fit of bad temper or a burst of capricious behaviour. Various guesses have been floated over the years, including a possible link to Welsh or to slang of the period, but none has been firmly established. Because there is no respectable ancestor language to anchor the spelling, the word simply has to be memorised as it sits. Helpfully, it is spelled exactly as it sounds, with the familiar 'tan' beginning and the '-trum' ending that rhymes with 'drum', which is the main thing that keeps writers from going wrong.
How the word is built
- tantrum (single root of unknown origin; no clear prefix or suffix)
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