Adhering

How to spell adhering

8 letters · 3 syllables

How to pronounce adhering

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does adhering mean?

1. verbActing in strict accordance with a rule, plan, agreement, or set of beliefs.
2. verbSticking fast to a surface or clinging to another object.

Adhering in a sentence

• The whole team is adhering to the new safety guidelines.

• The label kept adhering to the damp bottle despite the cold.

• By adhering to a strict budget, she paid off the loan early.

• Snow was adhering to the windscreen and blocking her view.

Where does adhering come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This is the present participle of the verb 'adhere', which English took from the Latin adhaerere, a compound of ad, meaning 'to' or 'toward', and haerere, meaning 'to stick' or 'to cling'. The literal sense was therefore 'to stick to something', and that physical image of one thing clinging fast to another survives in the modern word. English borrowed it in the early 1500s, at first for the concrete idea of substances sticking together, and the figurative sense of 'sticking to' a rule, a belief, or a cause followed soon after. The same haerere root is hiding inside relatives such as 'cohere', 'inherent', and 'hesitate', which originally pictured someone stuck and unable to move on. The spelling keeps the 'here' that comes straight from haerere, so remembering 'something sticks HERE' helps fix the middle of the word.

How the word is built

• ad- (to)
• here (from Latin haerere: to stick or cling)
• -ing (present participle)