Congestion

How to spell congestion

10 letters · 3 syllables

How to pronounce congestion

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does congestion mean?

1. nounOvercrowding that blocks free movement, especially of traffic on roads.
2. nounAn abnormal build-up of fluid or blood in part of the body, such as the nose or chest.

Congestion in a sentence

• The new ring road was built to ease congestion in the city centre.

• The cold left him with terrible nasal congestion for a week.

• Heavy congestion on the motorway delayed her arrival by an hour.

• The doctor prescribed a syrup to relieve the congestion in her chest.

Where does congestion come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This word traces back to the Latin congestio, a noun meaning 'a heaping up' or 'an accumulation'. It was formed from the verb congerere, 'to bring together' or 'to pile up', which combines the prefix con- meaning 'together' with gerere meaning 'to carry or bring'. The same gerere root carries quietly inside many English words, including 'gesture', 'digest', and 'register', all of which involve carrying or moving something. English adopted congestion in the late 1300s, at first in medical writing to describe an abnormal build-up of blood or fluid in part of the body. Only much later, as cities and roads grew crowded, did it take on the familiar modern sense of clogged traffic. The silent middle is the trap: the word keeps the hard g and the t of its Latin parent, so it is spelled with -gest-, not the -jest- that the pronunciation suggests.

How the word is built

• con- (together)
• gest (carry, from Latin gerere)
• -ion (noun suffix)