Annex

How to spell annex

5 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce annex

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does annex mean?

1. verbTo take possession of and incorporate a territory, region, or thing into something larger.
2. nounA separate or added building attached to or near a main one, often used for extra space.

Annex in a sentence

• verb

  The empire moved to annex the coastal province by force.

• noun

  The overflow meeting was held in the annex behind the main office.

• verb

  The council voted to annex the neighbouring parcel of land into the city.

• noun

  The school's science labs are housed in a modern annex across the courtyard.

Where does annex come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This word traces back to the Latin verb annectere, meaning 'to bind or tie to', which was built from the prefix ad- 'to, towards' (reduced to an- before the n) and the verb nectere 'to bind, fasten or knit together'. The past participle annexus gave rise to a noun for something joined on, and the sense of fastening one thing securely to another carried straight through into the modern meanings. English took the word in the 1300s by way of Old French annexer, originally in the sense of joining or attaching one thing to another. From there it developed two practical strands: the political sense of taking over and attaching a territory, and the architectural sense of a smaller building tied onto a larger one. The same nectere root that means 'to bind' also lives on in 'connect' and 'nexus', and remembering that buried idea of binding-to helps explain the double n: it is really ad- plus nectere fused together.

How the word is built

• an- (form of ad-: to, towards)
• nex (from Latin nectere: to bind or tie)