Contribute

How to spell contribute

10 letters · 3 syllables

How to pronounce contribute

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does contribute mean?

1. verbTo give money, effort, or ideas toward a shared goal or larger whole.

Contribute in a sentence

• Every employee was asked to contribute a small amount to the leaving gift.

• Poor diet and lack of sleep can contribute to long-term health problems.

Where does contribute come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This word comes from the Latin contribuere, meaning 'to bring together' or 'to add to a common store', formed from the prefix con-, meaning 'together', and tribuere, meaning 'to grant, allot, or pay'. The root tribuere itself came from tribus, the word for a Roman 'tribe', because dues and payments were originally distributed and collected according to the tribes of early Rome. English adopted contribute in the early 1500s, first in the sense of giving money or goods to a shared purpose, and the meaning later broadened to include adding ideas, effort, or any factor toward a result. The same tribuere root sits inside the everyday relatives 'tribute', 'attribute', and 'distribute', all of which deal with giving or allotting. Knowing that the middle is the solid Latin chunk 'tribut' helps fix the spelling, since the unstressed second syllable can otherwise tempt writers into wrong vowels.

How the word is built

• con- (together)
• tribut (from tribuere: to grant, allot, pay)
• -e