Unanimous

How to spell unanimous

9 letters · 4 syllables

How to pronounce unanimous

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does unanimous mean?

1. adjectiveFully agreed by everyone involved, with no dissent.

Unanimous in a sentence

• The board reached a unanimous decision to approve the merger.

• The jury returned a unanimous verdict after two hours.

Where does unanimous come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This word comes from the Latin unanimus, meaning 'of one mind', which was formed by joining unus 'one' with animus 'mind, spirit, or feeling'. The literal idea was a group whose minds were fused into a single shared will, so a unanimous decision is one where every individual mind agrees. English adopted it in the early 1600s, taking the Latin compound and fitting it with the familiar English adjective ending -ous. The same animus root survives in everyday words like 'animal', 'animate', and 'animosity', all of which trace back to the notion of breath, life, or spirited feeling. A useful spelling memory is that the middle of the word is 'anim', the same chunk as in 'animal', not a doubled vowel; the trap is wanting to write 'unaminous' or 'unanymous', when the correct order is un-anim-ous.

How the word is built

• un- (from Latin unus: one)
• anim (mind, spirit)
• -ous (adjective suffix)