Condominium

How to spell condominium

11 letters · 5 syllables

How to pronounce condominium

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does condominium mean?

1. nounA residential unit that is individually owned within a larger building or complex of shared common areas.
2. nounA territory governed jointly by two or more states under shared sovereignty.

Condominium in a sentence

• They sold the family house and bought a condominium near the marina.

• The islands were administered as a condominium by the two neighbouring powers.

• The monthly fee covers maintenance of the condominium and its grounds.

• Historians describe the disputed valley as a condominium ruled by both kingdoms.

Where does condominium come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This word comes from Latin, combining con-, meaning 'together' or 'with', and dominium, meaning 'lordship', 'right of ownership', or 'domain'. Dominium itself grew from dominus, the word for a lord or master of a household, which is also the ancestor of words like 'dominate' and 'dominion'. The compound originally described joint sovereignty, that is, two or more states governing one territory together, a sense recorded in English by the eighteenth century. By the mid-twentieth century, especially in North American property law, the term shifted to mean a building divided into units that are individually owned while the common areas are shared, and that real estate sense is now the dominant one. The spelling trap lives in the middle, where the run of similar vowels in 'domin' and the closing '-ium' invites writers to misjudge the unstressed syllables.

How the word is built

• con- (together)
• domin (from Latin dominus: lord, master)
• -ium (noun suffix denoting a place or state)