Assisting

How to spell assisting

9 letters · 3 syllables

How to pronounce assisting

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does assisting mean?

1. verbHelping someone or contributing effort to a task, usually in a supporting role.

Assisting in a sentence

• The nurse spent the morning assisting the surgeon in theatre.

• Two volunteers were assisting with the registration desk at the conference.

Where does assisting come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This word descends from the Latin verb assistere, which literally meant 'to stand beside' or 'to take a stand near someone'. It was built from the prefix ad-, meaning 'to' or 'toward' (which assimilated to as- before the s), and sistere, meaning 'to stand' or 'to cause to stand', itself a reduplicated form of stare 'to stand'. The original image was physical: standing close at hand, ready to step in, which naturally shifted toward the modern sense of giving help and support. English picked it up in the fifteenth century by way of Old French assister, and the present participle assisting simply adds the ordinary -ing ending. The same sistere root surfaces in a family of related words such as 'consist', 'insist', 'resist', and 'persist', and remembering that shared spine helps explain the double s: it is the as- prefix meeting the sist root, not a single careless doubling.

How the word is built

• as- (variant of ad-: to, toward)
• sist (from sistere: to stand, cause to stand)
• -ing (present participle suffix)