Clause

How to spell clause

6 letters · 1 syllable

How to pronounce clause

What does clause mean?

1. nounA distinct, self-contained section or provision within a contract, law, or formal document.
2. nounA group of words containing a subject and a verb, forming part of a sentence.

Clause in a sentence

• The rental agreement contains a clause allowing early termination.

• A relative clause usually begins with the word 'which' or 'who'.

• Her lawyer flagged a confidentiality clause buried in the contract.

• The editor advised splitting the long subordinate clause into its own sentence.

Where does clause come from?

Language of origin: Latin

The word comes from the Latin clausula, a diminutive of clausa, meaning a 'closing' or 'conclusion', which in turn derived from the verb claudere, 'to close or shut'. In late Latin a clausula was the closing portion of a sentence or of a legal document, the part that brought a passage to a tidy end. English borrowed the word through Old French clause during the 1200s, applying it both to a self-contained part of a sentence in grammar and to a distinct provision in a legal text. The same claudere root still lurks inside relatives such as 'close', 'include', 'conclude', and 'enclose', all of which carry the sense of shutting something in. Knowing that buried claus- ('shut') helps fix the spelling, since the ending is the soft -se of 'close' rather than the -ws of its sound-alike 'claws'.

How the word is built

• claus- (from Latin claudere: to close, shut)
• -e