write

pronunciation

How to pronounce write in British English: UK [raɪt] word uk audio image

How to pronounce write in American English: US [raɪt] word us audio image

Verb:

produce a literary work
communicate or express by writing
have (one's written work) issued for publication
communicate (with) in writing
communicate by letter
write music
mark or trace on a surface
record data on a computer
write or name the letters that comprise the conventionally accepted form of (a word or part of a word)

Word Origin

write: write: [OE] The etymological notion underlying write is of ‘cutting’ or ‘scratching’ (it is related to German reissen ‘tear’). The earliest form of writing involved cutting marks on stone, wood, etc, and the same word was carried over when the technology of writing moved on to pen and ink. It comes from a prehistoric Germanic *wrītan, but its ultimate origins are not known. The noun writ [OE] goes back to the same Germanic base.=> writ

write (v.): Old English writan "to score, outline, draw the figure of," later "to set down in writing" (class I strong verb; past tense wrat, past participle writen), from Proto-Germanic *writan "tear, scratch" (cognates: Old Frisian writa "to write," Old Saxon writan "to tear, scratch, write," Old Norse rita "write, scratch, outline," Old High German rizan "to write, scratch, tear," German reißen "to tear, pull, tug, sketch, draw, design"), outside connections doubtful. For men use to write an evill turne in marble stone, but a good turne in the dust. [More, 1513] Words for "write" in most Indo-European languages originally mean "carve, scratch, cut" (such as Latin scribere, Greek graphein, glyphein, Sanskrit rikh-); a few originally meant "paint" (Gothic meljan, Old Church Slavonic pisati, and most of the modern Slavic cognates). To write (something) off (1680s) originally was from accounting; figurative sense is recorded from 1889. Write-in "unlisted candidate" is recorded from 1932.

vt.