Affiliate

How to spell affiliate

9 letters · 4 syllables

How to pronounce affiliate

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does affiliate mean?

1. verbTo officially connect or attach a person or organisation to a larger body.
2. nounA person or organisation that is officially attached to or controlled by a larger one.

Affiliate in a sentence

• verb

  The clinic chose to affiliate with the regional hospital network.

• noun

  The broadcaster operates through a local affiliate in each major city.

• verb

  Many small charities affiliate with a national umbrella group for funding.

• noun

  As an online affiliate, she earns a commission on every referred sale.

Where does affiliate come from?

Language of origin: Latin

Affiliate comes from the Latin verb affiliare, which meant literally 'to adopt as a son'. It was built from the prefix ad-, meaning 'to' (which assimilated to af- before the f), and filius, the ordinary Latin word for 'son'. The image behind it is a family taking someone in as a child, so the early sense in English carried that idea of formal attachment to a parent body. English picked it up in the seventeenth century, at first in legal and church contexts about establishing parentage or membership, before it broadened into the modern business sense of linking one organisation, person, or website to a larger one. The same filius root sits inside 'filial', the adjective for the duties of a son or daughter, which is a useful reminder that the tricky middle of the word is spelled fili, not filly or filia.

How the word is built

• af- (assimilated form of ad-, meaning 'to')
• fili (from Latin filius, 'son')
• -ate (verb-forming suffix)