Commissioner

How to spell commissioner

12 letters · 4 syllables

32 of the 71 people asked to spell commissioner in Spelling Garden got it wrong the first time.

The most common mistake is comissioner. The letters people get wrong are highlighted.

comissioner commissioner

What people typed instead

• comissioner11 people
• commisioner10 people

How to pronounce commissioner

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does commissioner mean?

1. nounA person appointed to hold authority over a department, body, or area of public business.

Commissioner in a sentence

• The police commissioner announced new funding for neighbourhood patrols.

• The planning commissioner rejected the developer's application for the riverside site.

Where does commissioner come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This word traces back to the Latin verb committere, which combined com- meaning 'together' with mittere meaning 'to send' or 'to put'; the literal idea was of entrusting something to someone, of putting a matter into their hands. From committere came the noun commissio, meaning a 'sending together' or an entrusted task, and medieval Latin developed commissarius for an officer charged with a duty. English took 'commission' through Old French in the 1300s for an authority or task formally granted, and by the late 1400s added the agent ending to form 'commissioner', a person holding a commission. The spelling trap lives in that journey: the doubled m comes from the Latin com- prefix meeting the m of mittere, while the -ss- and -ion belong to the Latin commissio, giving the deceptive run of double m, double s, and -ioner. A close relative is 'commit', which keeps the same 'send/entrust' root visible.

How the word is built

• com- (together)
• miss (sent, from Latin mittere 'to send')
• -ion (noun-forming)
• -er (agent: one who)

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Of the Spelling Garden players who got commissioner wrong the first time, this is how many also got each of these wrong.

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