Appointment

How to spell appointment

11 letters · 3 syllables

How to pronounce appointment

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does appointment mean?

1. nounAn arrangement to meet someone or to be somewhere at a fixed time.
2. nounThe act of assigning someone to a job, post, or official position.

Appointment in a sentence

• She booked a dental appointment for early next week.

• Her appointment as head of finance was announced this morning.

• Please arrive ten minutes before your appointment at the clinic.

• The committee confirmed his appointment to the board.

Where does appointment come from?

Language of origin: French

This word traces back through Old French to the verb 'apointer', meaning 'to arrange' or 'to settle', which itself was built on the phrase 'a point', literally 'to a point'. The underlying Latin source is 'punctum', meaning 'a prick' or 'a point', from 'pungere', 'to pierce'. The original idea was of fixing or settling something to a precise point, whether a time, a place, or a position, and from this the senses of a scheduled meeting and the act of assigning someone to a role both developed. English adopted the verb 'appoint' in the 1300s, and the noun 'appointment', formed by adding the French-derived suffix '-ment' that turns a verb into a thing or result, followed not long after. The same 'punctum' root sits inside everyday words such as 'point', 'puncture', and 'punctual', and the double 'p' in the spelling comes from the Latin prefix 'ad' assimilating before the 'p', a trap that catches many writers.

How the word is built

• ap- (to, from Latin ad)
• point (from Latin punctum, a point)
• -ment (noun-forming suffix)