Authorship

How to spell authorship

10 letters · 3 syllables

How to pronounce authorship

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does authorship mean?

1. nounThe fact or condition of being the writer or originator of a particular work.
2. nounThe occupation or activity of writing books and other published works.

Authorship in a sentence

• The authorship of the anonymous letter remains unknown.

• She abandoned a steady salary to pursue authorship full time.

• Scholars still dispute the authorship of several early plays.

• The course covers the practical business side of authorship.

Where does authorship come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This word is built from 'author' plus the native English suffix '-ship'. The first part traces back to the Latin auctor, meaning 'originator', 'promoter', or 'creator', which itself grew from the verb augere, literally 'to increase' or 'to cause to grow'. English took 'author' in by way of Old French autor during the 1300s, and the silent classical 'h' was later inserted into the spelling to flag the Latin pedigree, which is exactly why the word looks heavier than it sounds. The ending '-ship' is thoroughly Germanic, the same element found in 'friendship' and 'hardship', where it signals a state or condition. Joined together, 'authorship' names the condition or fact of being the author of something, and the combined form has been current in English since around the seventeenth century. The lingering trap in the spelling is the unstressed second syllable, which sounds like 'er' but is correctly written 'or' to preserve the Latin auctor root.

How the word is built

• author (one who originates or writes)
• -ship (suffix denoting state, condition, or office)