Affiliation

How to spell affiliation

11 letters · 5 syllables

How to pronounce affiliation

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does affiliation mean?

1. nounAn official connection or membership linking a person or organisation to a larger group, party, or institution.

Affiliation in a sentence

• The form asked candidates to declare any political affiliation before the interview.

• Her affiliation with the research institute opened doors to funding and equipment.

Where does affiliation come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This word traces back to the Latin verb affiliare, meaning literally 'to adopt as a son', which was built from the prefix ad- (meaning 'to' or 'toward', here softened to af- before the f) and filius, the ordinary Latin word for 'son'. The medieval Latin sense was strikingly concrete: it described the formal act of taking someone into a family as a child. By the time the idea passed through French and into English in the eighteenth century, the meaning had broadened from family adoption to the looser idea of attaching or connecting a person or group to a larger body. The same filius root survives in the related word 'filial', describing the duties owed by a son or daughter, and in 'filiation'. The double f and the single l are the spelling trap here: knowing the prefix is af- before the fili root explains the two f's, while the single l comes straight from filius.

How the word is built

• af- (variant of ad-: to, toward)
• fili (from Latin filius: son)
• -ation (noun of action or state)