state
/steɪt/
Word Rarity
Common
Frequency: Zipf frequency 5.78 in modern English
5
Scrabble Score
5
Letters
1
Syllables
4
Unique Chars
Meaning
noun
A condition; a set of circumstances applying at any given time.
Colloquial; Countable; Uncountable
noun
A condition; a set of circumstances applying at any given time.
Countable; Obsolete; Uncountable
Example Sentences
- "a state of being"
- "a state of emergency"
- "Relate what Latium was, her ancient Kings : / Declare the paſt, and preſent State of things, / When firſt the Trojan Fleet Auſonia ſought ; / And how the Rivals lov’d, and how they fought."
- "I corralled the judge, and we started off across the fields, in no very mild state of fear of that gentleman's wife, whose vigilance was seldom relaxed."
- "States in which the energy has definite values are called stationary states of a system; they are described by wave functions Ψₙ which are the eigenfunctions of the Hamiltonian operator, i.e. which satisfy the equation ĤΨₙ = EₙΨₙ, where Eₙ are the eigenvalues of the energy."
- "absolute state"
Etymology
Etymology tree Proto-Indo-European *steh₂- Proto-Indo-European *-tus Proto-Indo-European *stéh₂-tu-s ~ *sth₂-téw-s Proto-Italic *status Latin statuslbor. Old French estatbor. Middle English stat English state From Middle English stat (as a noun); adopted c. 1200 from both Old French estat and Latin stātus (“manner of standing, attitude, position, carriage, manner, dress, apparel; and other senses”), from stāre (“to stand”). Doublet of estate and status. The sense of "polity" develops in the 14th century. Compare French être, Greek στέω (stéo), Italian stare, Portuguese estar, Romanian sta, and Spanish estar. The verb is first attested around the beginning of the 16th century. Related to English stand. Displaced native Old English hād (“state, condition”).
Origin
Word Breakdown
Regional Pronunciation
- American English: /steɪt/
- British English: /steɪt/
Usage
Inflected Forms
states (plural)
states (present, singular)
stating (participle, present)
stated (participle, past)
stated (past)
more state (comparative)
most state (superlative)