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ENGLISH · A WORD WITH POSSIBILITIES

write.

To form letters, words or symbols on a surface in order to communicate.

5 characters1 syllables approx.English language

Meaning & usage

verb/ɹaɪt/[ɹaɪt]Received-Pronunciation/ɹəɪt/US[ɹəɪʔ]US
  1. To form letters, words or symbols on a surface in order to communicate.

    ambitransitive
    The pupil wrote his name on the paper.
    Your son has been writing on the wall.
  2. To be the author of (a book, article, poem, etc.).

    transitive
    My uncle writes newspaper articles for The Herald.
  3. To compose and send written information (to).

    intransitive
    Please write to me when you get there.
    Please write me when you get there.
  4. To compose and send (written information or a written message, e.g. a letter) to.

    ditransitive
    Please write me a letter. Please write a letter to me.
  5. To compose and send (written information or a written message, e.g. a letter) to. To convey a fact to someone via writing.

    ditransitive
    Jimmy wrote me that he needs more money.
  6. To show (information, etc) in written form.

    transitive
    The due day of the homework is written in the syllabus.
  7. To be an author.

    intransitive
    I write for a living.
  8. To record data mechanically or electronically.

    intransitive
    The computer writes to the disk faster than it reads from it.
  9. To fill in, to complete using words.

    Canada · South-Africa · transitive · usually
    I was very anxious to know my score after I wrote the test.
  10. To impress durably; to imprint; to engrave.

    truth written on the heart
  11. To make known by writing; to record; to prove by one's own written testimony; often used reflexively.

  12. To sell (an option or other derivative).

  13. To paint a religious icon or a pysanka egg.

Where this word comes from

From Middle English writen, from Old English wrītan, from Proto-West Germanic *wrītan, from Proto-Germanic *wrītaną (“to carve, write”), from Proto-Indo-European *wrey- (“to rip, tear”). Cognate with West Frisian write (“to wear by rubbing, rip, tear”), Dutch wrijten (“to argue, quarrel”), Middle Low German wrîten (“to scratch, draw, write”) (> Low German wrieten, rieten (“to tear, split”)), German reißen (“to tear, rip”), Norwegian rita (“to rough-sketch, carve, write”), Swedish rita (“to draw, design, delineate, model”), Icelandic ríta, rita (“to inscribe, sketch, write”), German ritzen (“to carve, scratch”), Proto-Slavic *ryti (“to carve, engrave, dig”), Polish ryć (“to engrave, dig”), Czech rýt (“to engrave, dig”). See also rit and rat.

noun/ɹaɪt/[ɹaɪt]Received-Pronunciation/ɹəɪt/US[ɹəɪʔ]US
  1. The act or style of writing.

  2. The operation of storing data, as in memory or onto disk.

    How many writes per second can this hard disk handle?
Where this word comes from

From Middle English writen, from Old English wrītan, from Proto-West Germanic *wrītan, from Proto-Germanic *wrītaną (“to carve, write”), from Proto-Indo-European *wrey- (“to rip, tear”). Cognate with West Frisian write (“to wear by rubbing, rip, tear”), Dutch wrijten (“to argue, quarrel”), Middle Low German wrîten (“to scratch, draw, write”) (> Low German wrieten, rieten (“to tear, split”)), German reißen (“to tear, rip”), Norwegian rita (“to rough-sketch, carve, write”), Swedish rita (“to draw, design, delineate, model”), Icelandic ríta, rita (“to inscribe, sketch, write”), German ritzen (“to carve, scratch”), Proto-Slavic *ryti (“to carve, engrave, dig”), Polish ryć (“to engrave, dig”), Czech rýt (“to engrave, dig”). See also rit and rat.

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Definitions, grammatical labels, IPA, etymology and examples: Wiktionary contributors, extracted by Kaikki / Wiktextract. Adapted under CC BY-SA 4.0. Selected fields and authored examples are shown; third-party quotations and audio are omitted. See contributor history.

Last enriched 2026-09-10. Definitions are in English. Romanizations are shown when supplied by the source; syllable estimates are omitted for unsupported scripts.