Triumph

How to spell triumph

7 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce triumph

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does triumph mean?

1. nounA great victory, achievement, or the feeling of joy and satisfaction it brings.
2. verbTo win a notable victory or achieve a great success, often over difficulty or opposition.

Triumph in a sentence

• noun

  The new bridge was hailed as a triumph of modern engineering.

• verb

  The underdog team would eventually triumph over the league favourites.

• noun

  Her face glowed with triumph when the exam results came through.

• verb

  With patience and hard work, she would triumph in the end.

Where does triumph come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This word comes from the Latin triumphus, the name for the grand processional parade granted to a victorious Roman general as he entered the city with his captives and spoils. The Latin term is itself thought to have been borrowed from the Greek thriambos, a hymn or ecstatic song sung in honour of the god Bacchus during festal processions. English took the word in during the 1300s through Old French triumphe, at first keeping the literal sense of a ceremonial victory celebration before broadening to mean any great success or the joy that comes with it. A useful spelling note hides in the ending: the 'ph' spells the /f/ sound because the word ultimately traces back to Greek, where 'ph' regularly stands for that sound. The same family gives us the adjective 'triumphant' and the verb 'triumph', all of them keeping that telltale 'ph'.

How the word is built

• triumph (from Latin triumphus: a victory procession); the apparent 'tri-' is not the prefix meaning 'three' but part of the borrowed root