Worst

How to spell worst

5 letters · 1 syllable

How to pronounce worst

What does worst mean?

1. adjectiveMost bad, most severe, or least good of all; the superlative of bad.
2. nounThe most serious or unpleasant part, outcome, or condition of something.
3. adverbIn the most severe or least satisfactory manner.

Worst in a sentence

• adjective

  That was the worst traffic jam she had seen in years.

• noun

  They prepared for the worst but hoped for a quick recovery.

• adverb

  The older equipment performed worst during the stress test.

• adjective

  The worst part of the trip was the delayed flight home.

• noun

  By midnight the storm had passed and the worst was over.

• adverb

  Of all the regions, the coast was hit worst by the flooding.

Where does worst come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

This is a native English word, descended from the Old English wyrresta or wyrsta, the superlative meaning 'most bad' or 'most evil'. It belongs to an old Germanic family: the related comparative 'worse' comes from the same root, and cousins survive in Dutch and German words meaning 'to grow worse' or 'to confuse'. The underlying Germanic stem carried the idea of something becoming entangled or going astray, which softened over time into the simple notion of being inferior or most undesirable. Crucially, 'worst' is irregular: it does not build on 'bad' but on an entirely separate root, which is why we never write 'baddest' in standard English. The spelling trap is the unwritten vowel sound, since the 'or' is pronounced like 'er', tempting writers toward 'werst', and the noun for sausage, 'wurst', is a near homophone worth keeping distinct.

How the word is built

• wors- (from Old English wyrsa: more bad)
• -t (superlative suffix, related to -est)