Contributing

How to spell contributing

12 letters · 4 syllables

How to pronounce contributing

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does contributing mean?

1. verbGiving money, help, ideas, or effort towards a shared goal or fund.
2. adjectiveHelping to cause or bring about a particular result or outcome.

Contributing in a sentence

• verb

  She enjoys contributing to the staff newsletter every month.

• adjective

  Poor sleep was a major contributing factor in her exhaustion.

• verb

  Thank you for contributing so generously to the charity appeal.

• adjective

  The report listed several contributing causes of the delay.

Where does contributing come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This is the present participle of 'contribute', which comes from the Latin verb contribuere, meaning 'to bring together' or 'to add to a common stock'. That verb was formed from con-, meaning 'together', and tribuere, meaning 'to assign, grant, or pay', a word that originally referred to allotting something among the tribes (tribus) of Rome. English took 'contribute' in the early 1500s, first in the sense of paying money or supplies into a common fund, then broadening to any act of adding one's share to a larger effort. The same tribuere root sits behind 'tribute', 'attribute', and 'distribute', all of which share the idea of paying out or assigning. The spelling keeps a single 'b' and a single 't' before the ending, which is the main thing writers second-guess.

How the word is built

• con- (together)
• tribut (from Latin tribuere: to assign, grant, pay)
• -ing (present participle suffix)