Application

How to spell application

11 letters · 4 syllables

How to pronounce application

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does application mean?

1. nounA formal written request, typically submitted on a form, for a job, place, or benefit.
2. nounA computer program designed to perform a particular task for the user.
3. nounThe act of putting or spreading something onto a surface, or of putting a rule or method into practical use.

Application in a sentence

• Her job application was rejected because she missed the deadline.

• The new banking application lets customers transfer money instantly.

• The label recommends a thin application of the cream twice a day.

• The council reviews each planning application before granting permission.

• She closed every application before restarting her laptop.

• A second application of paint covered the stain completely.

Where does application come from?

Language of origin: Latin

Application comes from the Latin applicatio, a noun built on the verb applicare, which meant 'to attach to' or 'to join to', literally 'to fold toward' from ad 'to' and plicare 'to fold'. In its earliest Latin sense it described physically fastening one thing onto another, and that idea survives in the modern sense of applying paint or a dressing to a surface. By way of Old French and Medieval Latin the word reached English in the late 1300s, at first meaning the act of putting one thing into close contact with another. From there it branched out: the sense of diligent mental effort (one's mind 'applied' to a task), the sense of a formal written request, and much later the computing sense of a program 'applied' to a particular purpose. The same plicare root, meaning 'to fold', also gives us 'ply', 'pliable', 'complicate', and 'reply', which is a handy reminder that the heart of the word is a single set of letters, p-l-i.

How the word is built

• ap- (variant of ad-: to, toward)
• plic (from plicare: to fold or fasten)
• -ation (noun-forming suffix)