Wellness

How to spell wellness

8 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce wellness

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does wellness mean?

1. nounThe state of being in good health, especially as an actively pursued goal covering body and mind.

Wellness in a sentence

• The company introduced a wellness programme that covers gym membership and counselling.

• Her morning routine of stretching and meditation is central to her sense of wellness.

Where does wellness come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

This word is a straightforward native English compound, built from the adverb and adjective 'well', which descends from the Old English 'wel', meaning 'in a good or satisfactory way', and the productive suffix '-ness', which English has used for centuries to turn a quality into an abstract noun naming the state of having that quality. The earliest recorded use of 'wellness' to mean simply 'the state of being well in body' dates from the mid 1600s, where it stood as a plain opposite to 'illness'. For a long time it remained a quiet, little used word. It was revived and popularised in the second half of the twentieth century, especially in the United States, where it came to describe an active, holistic pursuit of good health covering diet, exercise, and mental balance rather than the mere absence of disease. Because it is a transparent compound of two familiar pieces, its spelling rarely surprises, though the doubled 'l' in 'well' and the single 's' before the suffix can trip a hurried writer.

How the word is built

• well (in good health, from Old English wel)
• -ness (noun suffix forming a state or quality)