What does pharaoh mean?
Word: Pharaoh
Part of Speech: Noun
Meaning: Pharaoh means a king of ancient Egypt.
Word origin: Reached English through Latin and Greek from the ancient Egyptian phrase per-aa.
How do you spell pharaoh?
Syllables: phar - aoh
Tricky part: The trap sits after the r, where students swap the two vowels and write pharoah.
Watch out for: pharoah, pharao, pharoh
Memory tip: Keep the two vowels after the r in dictionary order, a and then o, and let a silent h close the word.
Pharaoh in a sentence
Example 1: The museum's Egypt gallery has a golden statue of a young pharaoh.
Example 2: Boats on the Nile carried huge stone blocks for the pharaoh's new monument.
Example 3: Our history teacher drew a pharaoh's striped headdress on the board.
Fun Fact
Tutankhamun, often called the boy king, became pharaoh when he was only about nine years old.
Practise the CREST Way
Spellacadabra
Choose the correct option to make a meaningful word:
___araoh
a) gh
b) ff
c) f
d) ph
Show answer
d) ph. The opening f sound is written ph here, as it is in phone.
Back to the Roots
Choose the correct option:
Pharaoh goes back to the ancient Egyptian phrase per-aa. What did it mean?
a) high tower
b) long river
c) great house
d) golden crown
Show answer
c) great house. Per-aa named the royal palace, and in time the name passed to the king living in it.
Spell Spies
Choose the pair which has a spelling error:
a) dynasty : dynasties
b) monarch : monarches
c) pharaoh : pharaohs
d) emperor : emperors
Show answer
b) monarch : monarches. The ch of monarch is said as k, so the plural just adds s.
Jumble Tumble
What is the meaning of the word that can be formed from the given letters?
ahrohpa
a) a merchant who crossed the desert with camels
b) a sailor who mapped unknown coasts
c) a poet who sang at royal feasts
d) a ruler on the banks of the Nile in ancient times
Show answer
d) a ruler on the banks of the Nile in ancient times. Rearranged, this is the title of the kings who ruled along the Nile.
Multiple Choice Questions
1. Which of these could a pharaoh's subjects have watched being built?
a) the pyramids at Giza
b) the Taj Mahal at Agra
c) the Eiffel Tower in Paris
d) the Colosseum in Rome
Show answer
a) the pyramids at Giza
2. A pharaoh held the same sort of position in Egypt as a ___ held elsewhere.
a) governor
b) minister
c) sovereign
d) treasurer
Show answer
c) sovereign
