Conquering

How to spell conquering

10 letters · 3 syllables

How to pronounce conquering

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does conquering mean?

1. verbOvercoming or gaining control of something or someone, whether by force, effort, or determination.

Conquering in a sentence

• The general spent years conquering the surrounding provinces.

• Conquering her fear of public speaking took months of practice.

Where does conquering come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This word traces back to the Latin conquirere, which combined the intensifying prefix com- (thoroughly) with quaerere (to seek, search for, or acquire); the literal sense was 'to procure' or 'to gain by effort'. In Late Latin the meaning narrowed toward winning territory by force, and the word passed into Old French as conquerre, meaning to defeat or subdue. English adopted it in the 1200s as 'conquer', and the present participle 'conquering' follows the regular pattern of adding -ing. The same quaerere root underlies a surprising family of everyday words, including 'query', 'question', 'inquire', and 'acquire'. The spelling trap lives in the silent-looking 'qu' followed by 'er': writers must remember it is con-quer, not con-cur, and that the -ing simply attaches without doubling.

How the word is built

• con- (intensive, from Latin com-, thoroughly)
• quer (from quaerere, to seek or win)
• -ing (present participle suffix)