Toss

How to spell toss

4 letters · 1 syllable

How to pronounce toss

What does toss mean?

1. verbTo throw something lightly or carelessly, often upward or a short distance.
2. nounAn act of throwing something lightly, especially the flip of a coin to decide something.

Toss in a sentence

• verb

  Please toss the keys onto the kitchen counter.

• noun

  The captain won the toss and chose to bat first.

• verb

  The children like to toss a ball back and forth in the garden.

• noun

  With one quick toss she landed the paper in the bin.

Where does toss come from?

Language of origin: Unknown

Toss appears in English in the early 1500s, and its origin is genuinely uncertain, which is why dictionaries hedge on it. The most popular suggestion links it to a Scandinavian source related to Norwegian dialect 'tossa', meaning 'to scatter or spread about', which fits the idea of throwing something carelessly into the air. Others connect it with a Celtic root carrying a similar sense of jolting or shaking. From its earliest uses it described a light, upward throw, and from there it spread to senses like tossing a salad, tossing a coin, and being tossed about on rough seas. Because the word is short and phonetically regular, its spelling has stayed stable for centuries, the only real question being whether to double the final s, which English routinely does after a short vowel in a one-syllable word.

How the word is built

• toss (a single root word; no prefix or suffix)