Ways

How to spell ways

4 letters · 1 syllable

How to pronounce ways

What does ways mean?

1. nounMore than one method, manner, route, or habitual practice.

Ways in a sentence

• There are several ways to solve this problem at work.

• Old habits and family ways are hard to change.

Where does ways come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

This is the plural of 'way', which descends from the Old English noun 'weg', meaning a road, path, or course of travel. That word goes back to a Germanic root tied to the verb for moving or carrying, the same ancient source that gave us 'wagon', 'weigh', and 'wain'. Over the centuries the literal sense of a physical road broadened into the figurative senses we use most today: methods, manners, and habitual practices, as in 'ways of working'. The final '-s' is simply the ordinary English plural ending, though it also survives in adverbial leftovers such as 'always' and 'sideways'. The spelling trap is purely aural: 'ways' sounds identical to 'weighs', the verb about weight, so the eye must remember the 'a' road-sense spelling rather than the silent 'gh' of weight.

How the word is built

• way (from Old English weg: road, path)
• -s (plural/adverbial suffix)