Consultancy

How to spell consultancy

11 letters · 4 syllables

How to pronounce consultancy

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does consultancy mean?

1. nounA company or practice that provides expert professional advice to clients for a fee.
2. nounThe professional service or activity of giving expert advice.

Consultancy in a sentence

• She left the bank to start her own management consultancy.

• The fee covers design work plus ongoing consultancy on the project.

• The consultancy won a contract to advise the council on transport.

• Her role moved gradually from teaching into consultancy.

Where does consultancy come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This word grows from the Latin verb consultare, meaning 'to take counsel' or 'to deliberate', which was itself a frequentative form of consulere, 'to consult or seek advice'. The same root gave Rome its 'consul', the senior magistrate whose very title carried the sense of one who is consulted. English took 'consult' through French in the 1500s, and over the following centuries built abstract nouns on it. 'Consultancy' is the more recent of these, appearing in the late nineteenth century to name the practice or business of giving expert professional advice. The tricky part is the ending: it is spelled -ancy rather than -ency, because it descends through the Latin -antia rather than -entia, so the vowel that sounds like a faint schwa is in fact an 'a'.

How the word is built

• consult (from Latin consultare: to take counsel)
• -ancy (noun suffix forming a state or business)