Checklist

How to spell checklist

9 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce checklist

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does checklist mean?

1. nounA written list of items to be verified, completed, or ticked off in turn.

Checklist in a sentence

• The pilot worked through the pre-flight checklist before takeoff.

• She ticked off each task on her packing checklist before leaving for the airport.

Where does checklist come from?

Language of origin: Other

This is a modern compound formed in English from two older words, 'check' and 'list'. 'Check' arrived through Old French 'eschec', which traced back through Arabic to the Persian word 'shah', meaning 'king'; it began life in the game of chess (the warning 'check' to a threatened king) and gradually broadened to mean a stop, a control, and then the act of verifying something. 'List' comes from a Germanic root meaning a strip or border, which is why an enumerated series, originally written as a strip of items, came to be called a list. The two were joined in the twentieth century, when standardised verification became common in aviation, medicine, and manufacturing, to name a written series of items to be ticked off one by one. The spelling is simply the two parts placed together, so the trap is remembering it is a single solid word with the 'k' of 'check' meeting the 'l' of 'list' (checklist), not 'check list' or 'checlist'.

How the word is built

• check (to verify or mark off)
• list (an itemised series)