Approaches

How to spell approaches

10 letters · 3 syllables

How to pronounce approaches

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does approaches mean?

1. verbComes nearer in space, time, or degree, or begins to deal with something.
2. nounMethods of dealing with something, or the routes leading to a place.

Approaches in a sentence

• verb

  The deadline approaches faster than the team expected.

• noun

  The consultants compared several approaches to cutting costs.

• verb

  As winter approaches, the heating bills climb steadily.

• noun

  Police sealed off all the approaches to the stadium.

Where does approaches come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This word traces back to the Latin verb appropiare, meaning 'to come nearer', which was built from the prefix ad- 'to, toward' and prope 'near'. In Late Latin the prefix assimilated so that the d became another p, giving the doubled consonant that survives in the modern spelling. The verb passed into Old French as aprochier and then into Middle English in the 1300s, at first simply meaning to draw physically nearer to a place or person. Over time it gained the figurative sense of dealing with a task or topic, and the noun developed to describe both a route of access and a method of tackling something. The same prope root underlies words like 'proximity' and 'propinquity', and remembering that buried 'near' idea helps explain why the spelling keeps its double p.

How the word is built

• ap- (toward, from ad-)
• -proach (from Latin prope, near)
• -es (plural/third-person ending)