Absence

How to spell absence

7 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce absence

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does absence mean?

1. nounThe state of being away from a place, or the fact that something is lacking.

Absence in a sentence

• Her absence from the meeting was noted by the chair.

• In the absence of clear evidence, the claim was dismissed.

Where does absence come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This word traces back to the Latin noun absentia, meaning 'a being away' or 'a state of not being present'. That noun was built on absens, the present participle of the verb abesse, 'to be away', which itself joins ab, meaning 'away from', to esse, the verb 'to be'. English took the word in during the late fourteenth century, borrowing it through Old French as absence with exactly the modern sense of not being there. The very same root esse, 'to be', lurks inside its opposite, 'present' (from praesens, 'being before'), so absence and presence are a matched pair built on the same ancient verb. The spelling trap is the unstressed second syllable: the -ence ending is easily muddled with -ance, and remembering the Latin -entia, with an e, helps fix it.

How the word is built

• ab- (away from)
• -sent- (being present, from Latin esse 'to be')
• -ence (noun-forming suffix)