Venetian

How to spell venetian

8 letters · 3 syllables

How to pronounce venetian

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does venetian mean?

1. adjectiveBelonging to or characteristic of the city of Venice and its people.
2. nounA window blind made of horizontal slats that tilt to control light, short for 'venetian blind'.

Venetian in a sentence

• adjective

  The hotel overlooked a quiet venetian canal lined with old houses.

• noun

  He tilted the venetian to keep the afternoon sun off his desk.

• adjective

  She collected venetian glass during her trip to northern Italy.

• noun

  Dust had settled on every slat of the kitchen venetian.

Where does venetian come from?

Language of origin: Latin

The word traces back to the Latin Venetia, the name of the region in north-eastern Italy whose lagoon city became Venice, itself named after the ancient Veneti people who settled the area. Latin formed adjectives of belonging with the suffix that English now writes as -ian, so a person or thing of that region was Venetianus. English took the form in through Old French and Medieval Latin during the late medieval period, when Venice was a dominant trading power and its glass, fabrics, and goods were prized across Europe. The familiar phrase 'venetian blind', for a window covering of horizontal slats, arose in the eighteenth century, reflecting a belief that the design reached Europe by way of Venetian traders. The spelling trap sits in the unstressed middle: writers expect a double letter or an 'sh' spelling, but it is a single 't' followed by -ian, pronounced 'shun'.

How the word is built

• venet- (from Venetia, the region around Venice)
• -ian (adjective/noun suffix meaning 'belonging to')