Admissions

How to spell admissions

10 letters · 3 syllables

How to pronounce admissions

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does admissions mean?

1. nounThe processes by which people are formally allowed entry to an institution such as a university, school, or hospital.
2. nounStatements in which someone concedes or acknowledges that something is true, often something damaging.

Admissions in a sentence

• The university admissions office reviews thousands of applications each spring.

• The report contained several damaging admissions from senior managers.

• Hospital admissions rose sharply during the winter months.

• Her admissions of error surprised the rest of the committee.

Where does admissions come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This word traces back to the Latin verb admittere, meaning 'to let in' or 'to send to', built from the prefix ad- 'to, toward' and the verb mittere 'to send'. The noun form admissio described the act of letting someone enter, and English borrowed it through Old French and directly from Latin during the late Middle Ages. From the start it carried two related ideas: physically allowing entry, and conceding that something is true (as in admitting a fact). The same mittere root, which literally meant 'to send', also gives us mission, transmit, and dismiss, all sharing that core sense of sending. The double letter trap in the spelling, with one 'd' and a double 's', comes straight from the Latin assimilation of ad- before the m and the original -ssio ending.

How the word is built

• ad- (to)
• miss (sent, from Latin mittere)
• -ion (noun-forming)
• -s (plural)