Arriving

How to spell arriving

8 letters · 3 syllables

How to pronounce arriving

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does arriving mean?

1. verbReaching a destination or place after a journey.

Arriving in a sentence

• The train arriving at platform four is running ten minutes late.

• Guests arriving before noon will receive a free welcome drink.

Where does arriving come from?

Language of origin: Latin

The word arrive comes from the Latin phrase ad ripam, meaning 'to the shore', which fused into the Vulgar Latin verb arripare, literally 'to come to the shore' or 'to land a boat'. In its earliest days the word was nautical: ships did the arriving when they reached the bank or coast. English picked it up through Old French ariver in the 1200s, and over time the seafaring sense faded as the verb broadened to mean simply reaching any destination. The buried root ripa is the same one that gives us 'riparian', meaning relating to a riverbank. The present participle 'arriving' keeps a single r at the start and a doubled r in the middle, which is the spot where writers hesitate.

How the word is built

• ar- (to, toward)
• riv (from Latin ripa: shore)
• -ing (present participle suffix)