Activity

How to spell activity

8 letters · 4 syllables

How to pronounce activity

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does activity mean?

1. nounA state of being busy or in motion, or a particular task or pursuit that people undertake.

Activity in a sentence

• The museum runs a craft activity for visitors every afternoon.

• There was little activity in the office during the holiday week.

Where does activity come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This word descends from the Latin activus, meaning 'practical' or 'engaged in doing', which was built on actus, the past participle of agere 'to do, to drive, to set in motion'. From activus Latin formed activitas, the quality of being busy or in motion, and that abstract noun passed into Old French as activite before reaching English in the late 1300s and 1400s. The same agere root drives a whole family of familiar English words, including 'act', 'agent', 'agile' and 'agenda', all carrying the underlying sense of motion or doing. The spelling trap is purely about the unstressed middle: writers must keep the -iv- of 'active' before adding -ity, so the careful chain act + ive + ity explains every letter. The modern meaning, a state of being busy or a particular thing people do, follows directly from that ancient idea of being set in motion.

How the word is built

• act (from Latin actus: a doing)
• -ive (adjective suffix)
• -ity (noun suffix forming a quality or state)