Trust

How to spell trust

5 letters · 1 syllable

How to pronounce trust

What does trust mean?

1. nounFirm belief in the reliability, honesty, or ability of someone or something.
2. verbTo believe in the reliability or honesty of someone, or to rely on something with confidence.
3. nounA legal arrangement in which property or money is held by one party for the benefit of another.

Trust in a sentence

• noun

  Years of honest dealing earned her the trust of every client.

• verb

  You can trust her to finish the report on time.

• noun

  The grandparents set up a trust to pay for the children's education.

• noun

  The breach of trust between the partners ended their business.

• verb

  The engineers trust the data from the new sensors.

• noun

  The family home was placed in a trust to avoid probate delays.

Where does trust come from?

Language of origin: Old Norse

Trust came into Middle English in the 1200s from Old Norse traust, a noun that meant help, confidence, protection, and firm support, brought to Britain by Scandinavian settlers. The Norse word grew from a Germanic base meaning firm or strong, the same source that gives modern German its words Trost (comfort) and treu (faithful), and that also underlies the English word true. From the start the idea bundled together strength and reliability, so to trust someone was to lean on them as you would lean on something solid. Over the centuries it spread from personal confidence into law and finance, where a trust is property held firmly and faithfully by one person for another. The spelling has stayed short and phonetic, so the only real care needed is the single t at each end rather than any doubling.

How the word is built

• traust (Old Norse root: help, confidence, firmness)
• retained as a single English root word