Consensus

How to spell consensus

9 letters · 3 syllables

How to pronounce consensus

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does consensus mean?

1. nounGeneral agreement reached among the members of a group.

Consensus in a sentence

• The committee reached a consensus after two hours of debate.

• There was broad consensus among the staff about the new policy.

Where does consensus come from?

Language of origin: Latin

The word comes from the Latin consensus, meaning 'agreement' or 'shared feeling', a noun built from the verb consentire. That verb joined con-, meaning 'together', to sentire, meaning 'to feel' or 'to perceive', so the literal sense was a group of people feeling the same way. English borrowed it directly from Latin in the 1600s, first in a physiological sense describing parts of the body acting in sympathy, before settling into its modern meaning of general agreement among a group. The very same sentire root sits inside familiar words like 'sentiment', 'sense', and 'consent'. The single most common spelling trap is that every vowel after the first is an 's' word built on the same root, so it is all 's', never a 'c': con-SEN-SUS, with no 'c' in the middle and no double letters.

How the word is built

• con- (together)
• sens (feel, from sentire)
• -us (Latin noun ending)