Archery

How to spell archery

7 letters · 3 syllables

How to pronounce archery

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does archery mean?

1. nounThe sport, skill, or practice of shooting arrows with a bow.

Archery in a sentence

• The summer camp offered archery alongside swimming and canoeing.

• She joined a local club to learn archery after watching the Olympics.

Where does archery come from?

Language of origin: French

Archery traces back to the Latin word arcus, meaning 'a bow' or 'an arch', the same root that gives us the architectural 'arch' and the 'arc' of a curve. From arcus came the medieval Latin arcarius and the Old French archier, meaning a person who shoots with a bow. English borrowed the French archier as 'archer' in the 1200s, and by the 1300s the activity itself was named 'archery', built on the French ending -erie that denoted a craft or its practice. The literal sense, then, is simply 'the work of the bow'. The spelling keeps the 'arch' visible at the front, a handy reminder that the bow's shape is a curved arc rather than anything to do with 'arching' as a verb.

How the word is built

• arch- (bow, from Latin arcus)
• -ery (noun suffix: the art, practice, or place of)