Administering

How to spell administering

13 letters · 5 syllables

How to pronounce administering

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does administering mean?

1. verbManaging, directing, or carrying out the running of an organisation, system, or set of affairs.
2. verbGiving or applying something, such as medicine, a treatment, or a test, to a person.

Administering in a sentence

• The trustees are responsible for administering the charity's funds.

• The nurse was administering the vaccine to each patient in turn.

• She spent the year administering a busy department of forty staff.

• The teacher is administering the same exam to both classes this morning.

Where does administering come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This word traces back to the Latin verb administrare, meaning 'to serve, manage, or carry out', which was formed from ad-, meaning 'to' or 'towards', and ministrare, meaning 'to serve or attend'. That second part rests on minister, the Latin word for a servant or attendant, which itself grew from minus, meaning 'less', so a minister was originally a 'lesser' person who waited on a superior. English took the verb in during the 1300s, partly through Old French forms such as aministrer, and the spelling later settled back towards the fuller Latin shape with the 'd'. The present participle administering simply adds -ing, and the spelling trap lives in the unstressed middle, where the vowels in 'min-is-ter' all reduce to a soft schwa. It is worth remembering that the same minister root sits inside the church and government word 'minister', and that the idea of humble service still quietly underpins the modern senses of managing and dispensing.

How the word is built

• ad- (to)
• minister (servant, from minus 'less')
• -ing (present participle suffix)