Chancellor

How to spell chancellor

10 letters · 3 syllables

How to pronounce chancellor

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does chancellor mean?

1. nounA high-ranking official, such as a head of government in some countries or a senior minister in charge of finance or law.
2. nounThe ceremonial or titular head of a university.

Chancellor in a sentence

• The chancellor presented the annual budget to a packed parliament.

• The chancellor awarded degrees at the graduation ceremony.

• The German chancellor met other leaders to discuss trade.

• A retired judge was appointed honorary chancellor of the college.

Where does chancellor come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This word traces back to the Latin cancellarius, the title of a court official who stood at the cancelli, the latticed screen or crossbarred railing that separated the judge and clerks from the public. The word cancelli literally meant 'little crossbars' or 'a grating', a diminutive of cancer in its older sense of 'lattice'. Over time the doorkeeper at that barrier rose in importance, becoming a secretary and then a high officer of state, so the title climbed from gatekeeper to senior minister. English took the word in through Old French chanceler in the late eleventh and twelfth centuries, and it settled into spellings ending in -or. A curious relative is the verb 'cancel', which comes from the same lattice idea, because to cancel a document was to cross it out with lattice-like lines; remembering that the ending is the agent -or, not -er, helps fix the spelling.

How the word is built

• chancell- (from Latin cancellarius, an officer at the cancelli, a court's lattice barrier)
• -or (agent noun suffix: one who)