Belonging

How to spell belonging

9 letters · 3 syllables

How to pronounce belonging

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does belonging mean?

1. nounThe feeling of being accepted and at ease as part of a group or place.
2. verbThe present participle of belong: being a member of, owned by, or properly placed somewhere.

Belonging in a sentence

• noun

  After years in the city she finally felt a deep sense of belonging.

• verb

  The documents belonging to the estate were sealed by the lawyers.

• noun

  The company runs mentoring schemes to build a sense of belonging among new staff.

• verb

  She listed every item belonging to her late aunt.

Where does belonging come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

The word grows out of the Middle English verb belongen, formed from the intensifying prefix be- and the verb longen, meaning 'to go along with' or 'to pertain to'. That base traces back to Old English gelang, an adjective meaning 'dependent on' or 'at hand', built on the root that also gave us 'long' in the sense of stretching out toward something. By the 1300s belong had settled into its familiar meanings of being owned by someone, being a member of a group, and being properly placed somewhere. From the verb came the gerund belonging, which by the twentieth century also took on the warm emotional sense of feeling accepted and at home in a community. The spelling is regular, so the only point to watch is the single l and the -ng-ing ending, since the word simply stacks be-, long and -ing without any doubling.

How the word is built

• be- (intensifying prefix)
• long (to pertain, from Old English langian/gelang)
• -ing (noun/gerund suffix)