write
- 01 A1 Beginner
v.to make letters, numbers, or symbols on a surface like paper or a screen.
v.to form characters, symbols, or words on a substrate such as paper or a digital interface.
Simple“Please write your name at the top of the page.”
In context“The student wrote the equations on the whiteboard, carefully ensuring each symbol was legible for the rest of the class to follow.”
PitfallI wrote it with a pencil. I wrote it in pencil.Use 'in' for the medium (ink, pencil, chalk) and 'with' for the specific tool (a pen, a blue marker).
- 02 A1 Beginner
v.to create a book, story, poem, or article.
v.to compose a literary, artistic, or journalistic work as its author.
Simple“She wants to write a novel about her travels in Asia.”
In context“After years of research, the historian finally began to write his definitive biography of the revolutionary leader.”
- 03 A1 Beginner
v.to send a letter or email to someone.
v.to communicate with someone by sending a written or electronic message.
Simple“I will write to you as soon as I arrive at the hotel.”
In context“The manager promised to write the client immediately to clarify the terms of the new agreement.”
UsageIn British English, you 'write to someone'; in American English, you can simply 'write someone'.
Synonyms - 04 B2 Upper Intermediate
v.to save information onto a computer disk or memory.
v.to record data onto a storage medium or memory location.
Simple“The computer is writing the files to the external drive now.”
In context“The system failed because it could not write the log files to the disk due to insufficient permissions.”
- 05 C1 Advanced
v.to sell a financial contract like an option.
v.to sell an options contract or other derivative, thereby taking on the obligation to fulfill its terms.
Simple“He decided to write a covered call option to earn extra income.”
In context“Institutional investors often write options to hedge their existing portfolios against sudden market volatility.”
- 06 C1 Advanced
n.the act of saving data on a computer.
n.the process or operation of recording data to a storage device.
Simple“The error occurred during a disk write.”
In context“The application performance was bottlenecked by the high frequency of random writes to the database.”
Usage writes in his book · write until
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 rita (“to cut, scratch, 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.
Etymology adapted from Wiktionary, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.