Boundary

How to spell boundary

8 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce boundary

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does boundary mean?

1. nounA line or limit that marks the edge of an area, or the point at which one thing ends and another begins.

Boundary in a sentence

• The hedge marks the boundary between the two gardens.

• The river forms a natural boundary along the eastern edge of the county.

Where does boundary come from?

Language of origin: French

The word grows out of the noun 'bound', meaning a limit or border, which English took from the Old French 'bonde' or 'bodne' in the medieval period. That Old French form traces back to the Medieval Latin 'bodina', a word for a boundary marker whose own roots are thought to be Gaulish, from the Celtic languages once spoken across what is now France. To this 'bound', English speakers added the suffix '-ary', which forms nouns naming a thing connected with something, and 'boundary' is first recorded in the early 1600s. A useful spelling reminder is that the word is simply 'bound' plus 'ary', so the silent middle keeps the whole of 'bound' intact before the ending. The related verb 'to bound', meaning to form the edge of, comes from the same source and explains why a field can be said to be bounded on every side.

How the word is built

• bound (a limit, border)
• -ary (noun suffix denoting a thing connected with)