Comprising

How to spell comprising

10 letters · 3 syllables

How to pronounce comprising

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does comprising mean?

1. verbConsisting of or being made up of a number of specified parts or elements.

Comprising in a sentence

• The committee, comprising five elected members, met on Friday.

• The report has three sections, the final one comprising the budget figures.

Where does comprising come from?

Language of origin: Latin

The word descends from the Latin comprehendere, meaning 'to grasp', 'to seize', or 'to take hold of together', formed from com- 'together' and prehendere 'to seize'. By extension the Romans also used it figuratively for grasping something with the mind, that is, understanding it, and for taking things in so as to include them. The verb passed into Old French as comprendre, whose past participle compris gave English the verb 'comprise' in the late 1300s, carrying the sense of 'to contain' or 'to be made up of'. From 'comprise' we get the present participle 'comprising', used to describe what something is composed of. A useful spelling reminder is that the same prehendere root sits inside 'comprehend' and 'apprehend', and that the 's' here is sounded like a 'z' yet is still written with an 's', not a 'z'.

How the word is built

• com- (together)
• pris (to seize or grasp, from Latin prehendere)
• -ing (present participle suffix)