Checkout

How to spell checkout

8 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce checkout

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does checkout mean?

1. nounThe counter or station in a shop where customers pay for goods.
2. nounThe act or time of paying and leaving a hotel, or completing payment in an online order.

Checkout in a sentence

• The queue at the checkout stretched all the way down the aisle.

• The hotel checkout is at eleven, so we packed early.

• The supermarket added a self-service checkout near the entrance.

• The website crashed during checkout and lost my order.

Where does checkout come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

This is a modern English compound built from two much older parts. The first element, 'check', travelled a remarkable distance: it began as the Persian word 'shah', meaning 'king', which entered medieval Latin and Old French (as 'eschec') through the game of chess, where calling 'check' warned that the king was under attack. From the idea of stopping or controlling an opponent grew the senses of restraining, verifying, and finally settling an account. The second element, 'out', is a native Germanic word from Old English 'ut', meaning away or outward. The two were welded into the single noun 'checkout' in the early twentieth century, first for the supermarket point where shoppers settle up and leave, and later for hotel departure and online payment. The spelling trap is simply that the noun is written solid as one word, whereas the verb 'to check out' stays as two.

How the word is built

• check (verify/settle)
• out (adverb particle), a closed compound noun