Triumphant

How to spell triumphant

10 letters · 3 syllables

How to pronounce triumphant

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does triumphant mean?

1. adjectiveShowing great joy or pride after a victory or success.

Triumphant in a sentence

• The team gave a triumphant wave to the crowd after winning the final.

• She sent a triumphant email announcing that the contract had finally been signed.

Where does triumphant come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This word traces back to the Latin triumphus, the name for the grand victory procession in which a successful Roman general paraded through the city with his soldiers and captives. Many scholars think the Romans borrowed that word, by way of Etruscan, from the Greek thriambos, a hymn sung in honour of the god Dionysus, which is a charming reminder that a word now linked to military glory may have begun as a song of celebration. From triumphus Latin formed the verb triumphare, 'to celebrate a triumph', and its present participle triumphans gave the adjective sense of 'rejoicing in victory'. English took the word through Old French in the late 1400s, and the -ant ending here preserves that Latin participle, so the spelling keeps the f of triumph followed by -ant rather than the more common -ent. Remembering that the base word is simply 'triumph' plus '-ant' is the surest way to avoid the trap of writing -ent.

How the word is built

• triumph (from Latin triumphus: a victory procession)
• -ant (adjective suffix meaning 'in the state of')