Conjunction

How to spell conjunction

11 letters · 3 syllables

How to pronounce conjunction

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does conjunction mean?

1. nounA combination of events or circumstances occurring together, especially in a way that produces a particular result.
2. nounA word that joins together other words, phrases, or clauses, such as 'and', 'but', or 'because'.

Conjunction in a sentence

• A rare conjunction of high demand and low supply pushed the price up.

• The word 'although' functions as a conjunction that links two clauses.

• The festival runs in conjunction with the city's summer arts programme.

• The grammar exercise asked students to underline each conjunction in the passage.

Where does conjunction come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This word descends from the Latin coniunctio, meaning 'a joining together' or 'union', which was formed from the verb coniungere. That verb breaks neatly into con-, meaning 'together', and iungere, meaning 'to join' or 'to yoke', so the literal sense was the act of binding two things into one. English took it in through Old French in the 1300s, at first for any general combination of events or things, and grammarians later borrowed it for the little words like 'and' and 'but' that link parts of a sentence. The same iungere root, which also gave Latin iugum 'a yoke', survives in the everyday relatives 'join', 'junction', and 'adjoin'. Remembering that central 'junct' (the joining part) is the key to the spelling, since the tricky stretch is really just con + junct + ion.

How the word is built

• con- (together)
• junct (joined, from Latin jungere 'to join')
• -ion (noun-forming suffix)