Childcare

How to spell childcare

9 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce childcare

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does childcare mean?

1. nounThe supervision and care of children, especially while parents are at work.

Childcare in a sentence

• The rising cost of childcare forced her to cut back on working hours.

• Many employers now offer a childcare subsidy as part of the benefits package.

Where does childcare come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

This is a modern compound built from two very old native English words. The first part, 'child', descends from the Old English cild, which referred to an unborn or recently born baby and over the centuries broadened to mean any young person. The second part, 'care', comes from the Old English caru, which originally carried the heavier sense of sorrow, grief, or anxious burden before it softened into the modern idea of attentive looking after. The two were joined into the single compound 'childcare' fairly recently, taking hold in the twentieth century as paid and organised minding of children became a common social arrangement. Because both halves are everyday words, the only real spelling decision is whether to write it as one word, which is now the dominant form, rather than the older 'child care' or 'child-care'.

How the word is built

• child (Old English cild: a young person)
• care (Old English caru: anxiety, attention, looking after)