Appliance

How to spell appliance

9 letters · 3 syllables

How to pronounce appliance

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does appliance mean?

1. nounA machine or device, especially an electrical one, built to perform a particular household task.

Appliance in a sentence

• The kitchen came with every major appliance already installed.

• A faulty appliance tripped the circuit breaker overnight.

Where does appliance come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This word grew out of the verb 'apply', which English took in the 1300s from the Old French aplier, itself descended from the Latin applicare, meaning 'to attach to' or 'to bring close to'. That Latin verb was built from ad-, meaning 'to', and plicare, meaning 'to fold' or 'to fasten', the same root that hides inside words such as 'reply' and 'pliable'. By the 1500s English speakers had formed the noun 'appliance' with the suffix -ance to mean 'the act of applying' something. Over time the sense narrowed to a thing applied to a particular use, and by the twentieth century it settled firmly on the modern meaning of a machine or device built for a household task. The spelling keeps the double p of 'apply' and finishes with -ance rather than -ence, which is the small trap that catches careful writers.

How the word is built

• ap- (to, from ad-)
• pli (fold, fasten, from Latin plicare)
• -ance (noun-forming suffix)