Words
nounMore than one unit of language, as written or spoken.
How to spell words
5 letters · 1 syllable
How to pronounce words
What does words mean?
- nounMore than one unit of language, as written or spoken.
Words in a sentence
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She chose her words carefully before the interview.
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The contract used legal words that few people understood.
Where does words come from?
Language of origin: Germanic
This is simply the plural of 'word', which descends from the Old English 'word', a noun meaning a unit of speech or a statement. That Old English form goes back to a reconstructed Proto-Germanic 'wurdan', which is also the ancestor of the German 'Wort' and the Dutch 'woord'. Reaching further back, scholars connect it to a Proto-Indo-European root 'wer-', meaning 'to speak' or 'to say', the same root that gave Latin 'verbum' (word) and ultimately English 'verb'. The plural was formed in the regular Germanic way by adding the ending that became modern 's', so 'words' has been used since the earliest English texts. The spelling is straightforward and has changed little, which is why it remains one of the easiest words to write.
How the word is built
- word (Old English meaning a unit of speech)
- -s (plural suffix)
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