Constituencies

How to spell constituencies

14 letters · 5 syllables

How to pronounce constituencies

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does constituencies mean?

1. nounThe bodies of voters in defined electoral districts, or those districts themselves, represented by an elected official.
2. nounDistinct groups of people whose support or interests an organisation must serve.

Constituencies in a sentence

• The boundary review redrew several constituencies before the next election.

• The charity must balance the needs of its many constituencies, from donors to volunteers.

• Rural constituencies often have very different priorities from urban ones.

• The new policy was designed to appeal to several business constituencies at once.

Where does constituencies come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This is the plural of constituency, a word built on the Latin verb constituere, which meant to set up, to establish, or to appoint. That verb joined the prefix com-, meaning together, with statuere, meaning to set or place, so the literal sense was to cause something to stand firmly in place. English took the related adjective and noun forms through French and Latin during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, and constituency itself emerged in the political vocabulary of the 1800s to name the body of voters who constitute, or formally make up, an electorate. The same statuere root sits inside familiar relatives such as statute, institute, and constitute, all sharing the idea of setting something in a fixed position. The spelling trap lies in the quiet middle, where the -stitu- and the unstressed -ency are easy to garble, and the plural quietly turns the y into ies.

How the word is built

• con- (together, from com-)
• -stitu- (from Latin statuere, to set up or establish)
• -ency (state or condition)
• -ies (plural)