Amplification

How to spell amplification

13 letters · 5 syllables

How to pronounce amplification

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does amplification mean?

1. nounThe act of making something larger, stronger, or more intense.
2. nounThe process of increasing the strength of an electrical signal or sound.

Amplification in a sentence

• The report called for the amplification of the safety warnings on the label.

• The guitar needs amplification before it can fill the concert hall.

• Social media can cause rapid amplification of an otherwise minor complaint.

• The engineer adjusted the amplification so the recording would not distort.

Where does amplification come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This word descends from the Latin amplificatio, a noun built on the verb amplificare, meaning 'to enlarge' or 'to make wider'. That verb was itself formed from amplus, meaning 'large, spacious, or abundant', joined to a form of facere, meaning 'to make', so the literal idea was 'a making larger'. English took it up in the 1500s, at first largely in the rhetorical sense of expanding or developing a statement at length, before it broadened to cover any kind of increase in size, strength, or effect. The same amplus root still sits inside the everyday word 'ample', meaning plentiful, which is a handy memory hook for the spelling. The chief trap is the unstressed middle, where the '-plifi-' run of soft vowels is easy to garble; remembering 'ampli' plus 'fication' keeps it on track.

How the word is built

• ampl- (from Latin amplus: large, wide)
• -ific- (from facere: to make)
• -ation (noun of action)