Compensate

How to spell compensate

10 letters · 3 syllables

How to pronounce compensate

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does compensate mean?

1. verbTo make up for something lost, lacking, or undesirable by providing a balancing benefit or effect.
2. verbTo pay someone money in return for work done or to cover loss or injury suffered.

Compensate in a sentence

• A higher salary helped compensate for the long commute.

• The airline agreed to compensate passengers for the cancelled flight.

• Extra batteries can compensate for the camera's poor battery life.

• The firm will compensate employees for any unpaid overtime.

Where does compensate come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This word comes from the Latin verb compensare, meaning 'to weigh one thing against another' or 'to balance out'. It was formed from com-, meaning 'together', and pensare, meaning 'to weigh', which is a frequentative form of pendere, 'to weigh' or 'to pay' (because in ancient times payment was literally measured out by weighing metal). English adopted compensate in the early 1600s, originally in the sense of counterbalancing or making up for a loss, and the meaning of paying someone for work or damage grew out of that same idea of balancing the scales. The shared pendere root also gives us familiar relatives such as 'pension', 'expense', and 'pendulum', all tied to the notion of weighing or hanging in balance. Remembering that hidden 'pens' (to weigh) at the centre helps fix the spelling, since the word is essentially weighing things 'together'.

How the word is built

• com- (together)
• pens (weigh, pay)
• -ate (verb suffix)