Auxiliary

How to spell auxiliary

9 letters · 4 syllables

How to pronounce auxiliary

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does auxiliary mean?

1. adjectiveProviding additional or supporting help, held in reserve to back up something main.
2. nounA person or group that gives supplementary support to a main organisation.

Auxiliary in a sentence

• adjective

  The hospital switched to its auxiliary generator during the blackout.

• noun

  She volunteered with the hospital auxiliary to raise money for new beds.

• adjective

  The fire crew called in an auxiliary pump to boost the water pressure.

• noun

  The local fire service relies on a trained auxiliary to cover rural callouts.

Where does auxiliary come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This word traces back to the Latin auxiliarius, meaning 'giving help' or 'supporting', which was built on the noun auxilium, literally 'help' or 'aid'. That noun in turn grew from the verb augere, meaning 'to increase' or 'to add to', the same root that gives us 'augment' and even 'author'. The original Roman sense was strongly military: the auxilia were the supporting troops who reinforced the main legions, so the idea of a reserve force standing ready to assist sits right at the heart of the word. English adopted it in the early 1600s, keeping both the broad sense of 'providing extra support' and the narrower military and naval one. The spelling trap lives in that crowded middle, 'auxili', where the unstressed vowels blur and writers lose track of how many i's belong and in what order.

How the word is built

• auxili- (from Latin auxilium: help, aid)
• -ary (adjective/noun suffix)