Circuitry

How to spell circuitry

9 letters · 3 syllables

How to pronounce circuitry

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does circuitry mean?

1. nounThe system of electrical circuits and connected components inside a device or machine.

Circuitry in a sentence

• A power surge damaged the delicate circuitry inside the laptop.

• The technician traced the fault to a corroded section of circuitry on the main board.

Where does circuitry come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This word is built on 'circuit', which English took during the 1300s from Old French circuit, itself from the Latin circuitus meaning 'a going around' or 'a circular path'. That Latin noun came from the verb circumire, formed from circum 'around' and ire 'to go', so the literal idea is simply 'to travel round'. For centuries a circuit meant a journey on a fixed route, and English still uses it that way for a judge riding a regular round of courts. Once electricity was understood, a 'circuit' became the closed loop a current travels, and in the nineteenth century the collective suffix -ry was added to give 'circuitry', meaning the whole arrangement of connected electrical components. The spelling trap lives in the original Latin: the 'cui' cluster keeps the round-trip idea of circum-ire, even though we no longer pronounce it as two distinct vowels.

How the word is built

• circuit (a closed loop, from Latin circuitus 'a going around')
• -ry (suffix forming a collective noun: a body of such things)