Certificate

How to spell certificate

11 letters · 4 syllables

How to pronounce certificate

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does certificate mean?

1. nounAn official document that formally records or confirms a fact, qualification, or status.
2. verbTo formally attest to or authorise something by issuing an official document.

Certificate in a sentence

• noun

  The registrar posted a copy of his birth certificate within two weeks.

• verb

  The board agreed to certificate each electrician who passed the safety exam.

• noun

  She framed the diploma and her teaching certificate above the desk.

• verb

  Inspectors must certificate the building as safe before tenants move in.

Where does certificate come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This word traces back to the Latin certificatum, meaning 'a thing made certain', from the verb certificare 'to make sure'. That verb was built from certus, meaning 'certain' or 'settled', combined with facere, 'to make' or 'to do', so the literal idea is 'to make certain'. English took it in through Old French in the late fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, first as a verb meaning to attest or assure something formally, and then as a noun for the written document that gives that assurance. The same certus root sits inside everyday relatives like 'certain', 'certify' and 'ascertain', which is a useful memory hook: the word begins with the same cert- you already know from 'certain'. The tricky middle, the unstressed -ifi- with its soft c, is the usual spelling trap, since the second c is sounded like a k while the first is soft.

How the word is built

• cert- (from Latin certus: certain, sure)
• -fic- (from facere: to make)
• -ate (noun/verb suffix)