Consent

How to spell consent

7 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce consent

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does consent mean?

1. nounPermission or agreement for something to happen.
2. verbTo give permission for something or agree to do it.

Consent in a sentence

• noun

  The form cannot be processed without written consent from the patient.

• verb

  The landlord refused to consent to the proposed renovations.

• noun

  Both parents gave their consent before the school trip went ahead.

• verb

  She would not consent to the merger on those terms.

Where does consent come from?

Language of origin: Latin

Consent comes from the Latin consentire, which literally meant 'to feel together' or 'to agree in feeling', formed from the prefix con- meaning 'together' and the verb sentire meaning 'to feel' or 'to perceive'. The idea was that two people who consented shared the same sentiment about a matter. English took it up in the 1200s by way of Old French consentir, first as a verb for agreeing or permitting and soon afterwards as a noun for the agreement itself. The same sentire root sits inside a whole family of feeling words, including 'sentiment', 'sense', 'resent', and 'consensus', so the spelling with -sent- rather than -cent- becomes easier to fix once you connect it to feeling. The trap for adults is purely aural: the second syllable is an unstressed schwa, which tempts a 'c' where the root demands an 's'.

How the word is built

• con- (together, with)
• sent (from sentire: to feel)