Affordability

How to spell affordability

13 letters · 6 syllables

How to pronounce affordability

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does affordability mean?

1. nounThe quality of being cheap enough that people are able to pay for it.

Affordability in a sentence

• Rising interest rates have damaged housing affordability across the region.

• The council reviewed the affordability of the new transport fares for low-income families.

Where does affordability come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

This word traces back to the Old English verb geforthian, which meant 'to further, to carry out, or to provide', formed on the root forth meaning 'forward'. Over centuries the ge- prefix wore down to a-, and the spelling drifted so that the second element looked like the unrelated noun 'ford'; the original sense of 'pushing something forward and providing it' narrowed to the modern idea of having the means to pay for something. The adjective 'affordable' emerged once the verb 'afford' settled, and the abstract noun 'affordability' was built by adding -able (meaning 'capable of being') and then -ity (meaning 'the state or quality of'). Although it feels like a modern economics term, the underlying verb is genuinely native English rather than a Latin borrowing, which is why its spelling looks irregular: the doubled f comes from the assimilated prefix meeting the root. The chief spelling trap is remembering the two f letters at the front and the long but regular -ability tail.

How the word is built

• af- (assimilated form of Old English ge-, intensifier)
• ford (from forth: to further, provide)
• -able (capable of)
• -ity (noun of state)