Constable

How to spell constable

9 letters · 3 syllables

How to pronounce constable

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does constable mean?

1. nounA police officer of the most junior rank.

Constable in a sentence

• The constable took a statement from each witness at the scene.

• A uniformed constable directed traffic around the closed junction.

Where does constable come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This word has a surprisingly humble origin in the stables. It comes from the Late Latin phrase comes stabuli, meaning 'count of the stable', the official who had charge of a ruler's horses and stable. Over time that stable-master grew into a high household and military officer, and the phrase fused into the Old French conestable, which English borrowed in the 1200s. By the later Middle Ages the title had been demoted from grand royal officer to a local parish officer keeping the peace, and from there to the modern police rank. The spelling trap lives in that buried history: the 'con' really hides comes (count) and the 'stable' really is the horse stable, even though no one today hears horses in it, and the first vowel is pronounced more like 'cun' than 'con' in British speech.

How the word is built

• con- (from Latin comes, count or companion)
• stable (from stabuli, of the stable) = literally 'count of the stable'