Tavern

How to spell tavern

6 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce tavern

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does tavern mean?

1. nounA place, often a small establishment, where alcoholic drinks and sometimes food are served to the public.

Tavern in a sentence

• The old tavern on the corner has served ale for three centuries.

• After the long drive they stopped at a roadside tavern for a meal and a pint.

Where does tavern come from?

Language of origin: Latin

The word comes from the Latin taberna, which originally meant a simple hut, shed, or booth made of boards, and only later came to mean a shop or an inn where wine was sold. That root was probably connected to tabula, the Latin word for a plank or board, the same source that gives us 'table', so a taberna was essentially a structure built of timber planking. English took the word in the 1300s from Old French taverne, by which time it firmly meant a public house serving wine and food to travellers. The unstressed second syllable, ending in '-ern', is the small spelling trap, since the vowel there is a faint schwa rather than the clear sound the spelling suggests. The same Latin taberna also lurks behind the Spanish 'tasca' tradition and the modern word 'tabernacle', which began as a 'little tent or booth'.

How the word is built

• tavern (from Latin taberna: hut, shop, inn); a single root word with no prefix or suffix in English