Anticipating

How to spell anticipating

12 letters · 5 syllables

How to pronounce anticipating

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does anticipating mean?

1. verbExpecting or looking forward to something, often preparing for it in advance.

Anticipating in a sentence

• The whole team was anticipating a busy quarter ahead.

• She spent the morning anticipating her client's likely questions.

Where does anticipating come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This word descends from the Latin verb anticipare, meaning 'to take before' or 'to take care of in advance'. It was formed from ante, meaning 'before', and capere, meaning 'to take' or 'to seize', so the literal sense was grasping something ahead of time. English adopted 'anticipate' in the sixteenth century, at first carrying the legal and financial idea of acting on something before it was due, before settling into the modern sense of expecting or looking forward to a coming event. The root capere is remarkably productive in English, surfacing in relatives such as 'capture', 'receive', and 'capable', all of which involve some form of taking. The spelling trap lies in the buried 'ci' that sounds like 'si', and in remembering the single 'c' followed by 'pat', not a doubled consonant.

How the word is built

• anti- (before)
• cip (from capere: to take)
• -ate (verb)
• -ing (present participle)