Availability

How to spell availability

12 letters · 6 syllables

How to pronounce availability

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does availability mean?

1. nounThe state of being free, accessible, or able to be obtained or used.

Availability in a sentence

• The hotel confirmed room availability for the weekend of the conference.

• Please check your availability for a meeting on Thursday afternoon.

Where does availability come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This word traces back to the Latin verb valere, which literally meant 'to be strong' or 'to be worth', the same root that gives us 'value', 'valid', and 'valiant'. In Old French this became valoir or valeir, and English combined it with the prefix a- (an intensifying form of Latin ad, meaning 'to') to form the verb 'avail', meaning 'to be of use or worth', recorded from around the 1300s. From the adjective 'available', meaning 'able to be used or obtained', writers built the abstract noun 'availability' by adding the cluster of suffixes -abil-ity, which denotes a capacity or state. The spelling trap lives in that long middle stretch: the unstressed 'a' in '-abil-' is easy to mishear, and the whole tail '-ability' must be spelled out in full. Remembering that the core is 'avail' plus '-ability' keeps the vowels in order.

How the word is built

• a- (intensive, from Latin ad: to)
• vail (worth/value, from Latin valere: to be strong, be worth)
• -abil(ity) (capacity, state)