Commentaries

How to spell commentaries

12 letters · 4 syllables

How to pronounce commentaries

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does commentaries mean?

1. nounSets of explanatory notes or critical analyses written about a text, event, or subject.
2. nounSpoken accounts describing events as they happen, especially during broadcasts of sport or ceremonies.

Commentaries in a sentence

• The scholar published two commentaries on the disputed legal clauses.

• The network offers live commentaries in three different languages during the final.

• The textbook includes detailed commentaries alongside each original passage.

• Radio commentaries of the match kept commuters informed on their way home.

Where does commentaries come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This word descends from the Latin commentarius (also commentarium), which named a notebook, memorandum, or set of personal jottings. That noun grew out of the verb commentari, meaning to think over, consider, or discuss thoroughly, which in turn traces back to comminisci, to contrive or devise, and ultimately to mens, the Latin word for mind. So at root a commentary is literally something the mind has worked over and set down. Roman generals used the term for their field reports, most famously in Julius Caesar's Commentarii on the Gallic War. English borrowed the word through Old French and Latin in the late medieval period, and its meaning widened from private notes to any explanatory account or running set of remarks. The spelling trap lives in the middle: the doubled m of com- followed by the unstressed -ment, and then the easily slurred -aries ending.

How the word is built

• com- (intensive: thoroughly)
• ment (from Latin mens: mind)
• -ary (noun suffix: a place or collection)
• -ies (plural)