Text

How to spell text

4 letters · 1 syllable

How to pronounce text

What does text mean?

1. nounThe actual written or printed words of a book, document, or message.
2. verbTo send someone a short electronic message from a phone.

Text in a sentence

• noun

  The editor reviewed the text for spelling errors before printing.

• verb

  Please text me the address when you arrive at the station.

• noun

  She enlarged the text on screen so it was easier to read.

• verb

  He likes to text his family every evening from work.

Where does text come from?

Language of origin: Latin

The word comes from the Latin textus, which literally meant 'something woven' or 'a texture', the past participle of texere, meaning 'to weave'. Roman writers used it as a metaphor: a piece of writing was imagined as threads woven together into a finished fabric of words. English borrowed it through Old French texte in the late 1300s, first meaning the actual wording of a book or scripture as opposed to commentary about it. The same texere root still sits inside everyday relatives like 'textile', 'texture', and 'context', all of which carry the original idea of weaving. In the modern era the noun grew a brand-new verb sense for sending short electronic messages, a development that took off in the late 1990s with mobile phones.

How the word is built

• text (from Latin textus: a thing woven, a literary composition)