Administration

How to spell administration

14 letters · 5 syllables

How to pronounce administration

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does administration mean?

1. nounThe process of running an organisation or country, or the group of people who carry that out.
2. nounThe act of giving or applying something, such as a drug or a dose of medicine.

Administration in a sentence

• The hospital's administration approved the new staffing budget.

• The nurse logged the time of administration for each dose.

• A change of administration followed the general election.

• Careful administration of the anaesthetic reduced the risk of complications.

Where does administration come from?

Language of origin: Latin

The word descends from the Latin administratio, meaning 'management' or 'the giving of help', a noun formed from the verb administrare, 'to manage, direct, or serve'. That verb combined the prefix ad-, meaning 'to' or 'toward', with ministrare, 'to serve or attend to', which in turn came from minister, the ordinary Latin word for a servant or attendant. The same minister root, literally 'a lesser person' (from minus, 'less'), still surfaces in the modern 'minister' of government and the verb 'minister to', so the original flavour of humble service lingers underneath today's bureaucratic sense. English took the word in through Old French administracion in the 1300s, first describing the management of affairs or an estate, and only much later the body of officials who run a government. The long string of unstressed syllables in the middle, the -min-, -is-, -tra-, is exactly where writers stumble, since the schwa vowels give no clue to the spelling.

How the word is built

• ad- (to, toward)
• minister (servant, one who serves)
• -ation (noun of action)