Veto
nounA constitutional or official right to reject a decision or proposal.
How to spell veto
4 letters · 2 syllables
How to pronounce veto
Say the part in capitals loudest.
What does veto mean?
- nounA constitutional or official right to reject a decision or proposal.
- verbTo reject or forbid a decision by using such authority.
Veto in a sentence
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noun
The president exercised his veto to block the spending bill.
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verb
The board may veto any appointment it considers unsuitable.
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noun
The council chair holds a veto over any change to the budget.
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verb
My manager decided to veto the plan before it reached the client.
Where does veto come from?
Language of origin: Latin
Veto comes directly from the Latin verb veto, which literally means 'I forbid' or 'I object'. In the Roman Republic this single word carried real power: the tribunes of the people could halt a measure simply by pronouncing 'veto', refusing to let it pass. The word entered English in the 1600s as a noun for the act of forbidding something, and the verb followed soon after. Because English took the Latin first-person form whole, the spelling stayed compact and regular, with just one of each consonant. The same Latin family also gives us the rarer word 'vetative', and the political sense remains strong today in the power a president or council head holds to block a decision.
How the word is built
- veto (from Latin veto, literally 'I forbid'; treated in English as a single unanalysed root)
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