Venue

How to spell venue

5 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce venue

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does venue mean?

1. nounThe place where an organised event, performance, or gathering is held.
2. nounThe county or district in which a legal case is tried.

Venue in a sentence

• The wedding venue overlooked the harbour.

• The defence requested a change of venue to ensure an impartial jury.

• Organisers booked a larger venue when ticket sales surged.

• The judge ruled that the proper venue for the dispute was the county where the contract was signed.

Where does venue come from?

Language of origin: French

Venue comes from the French word venue, meaning 'a coming' or 'an arrival', which is the feminine past participle of the verb venir, 'to come'. That French verb descends directly from the Latin venire, also meaning 'to come', a root that English speakers still meet inside words like 'convene', 'intervene', and 'avenue'. When the word entered English in the 1300s, its earliest use was legal: it meant the county or district from which a jury was summoned to 'come' and where a case was tried, which is why lawyers still talk about a 'change of venue'. From that idea of the appointed place where people gather, the modern, everyday meaning grew: the location chosen for an event, concert, or match. The spelling trap is the silent ending, since the word sounds like 'ven-yoo' yet keeps the French -ue, a reminder that it literally marks the place to which people come.

How the word is built

• ven- (from Latin venire: to come)
• -ue (noun ending from French past participle)