Thrive
verbTo grow, develop, or do well, especially in a vigorous and successful way.
How to spell thrive
6 letters · 1 syllable
How to pronounce thrive
What does thrive mean?
- verbTo grow, develop, or do well, especially in a vigorous and successful way.
Thrive in a sentence
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These plants thrive in damp, shaded soil.
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Small businesses can thrive when local demand stays strong.
Where does thrive come from?
Language of origin: Old Norse
Thrive came into English around the year 1200 from the Old Norse word thrifask, which was the reflexive form of thrifa, meaning 'to grasp, seize, or take hold of'. The literal idea was that of grabbing something for oneself, and from that grasping sense the meaning shifted toward gaining wealth, growing, and flourishing, since a person who seized opportunities tended to prosper. It is one of many words that Norse-speaking settlers left in English during the Viking period, alongside everyday borrowings such as 'take', 'skin', and 'window'. The strong-verb past tense 'throve' (rather than 'thrived') survives as a fossil of its Germanic roots, though 'thrived' is now the usual form. Because the word is short and phonetically regular, its main spelling point is the silent letter combination at the start and the long 'i' written as 'i' followed by a single consonant and silent 'e'.
How the word is built
- thrive (single root verb from Old Norse; no prefix or suffix)
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