Convoy

How to spell convoy

6 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce convoy

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does convoy mean?

1. nounA group of vehicles or ships travelling together, often with an armed escort for protection.
2. verbTo accompany and escort something, especially for protection on a journey.

Convoy in a sentence

• noun

  A military convoy of trucks rolled slowly along the desert highway.

• verb

  Two patrol boats will convoy the tanker through the narrow strait.

• noun

  The aid convoy carried food and medicine to the flooded villages.

• verb

  Armed police agreed to convoy the cash delivery across the city.

Where does convoy come from?

Language of origin: French

This word comes from the Old French verb convoyer, meaning 'to accompany' or 'to escort on the way', which descended from the Late Latin conviare. That Latin form was built from com-, meaning 'together with', and via, meaning 'road' or 'way', so the literal idea was of people travelling a road together for safety. English took the word in during the 1400s, at first as a verb for escorting someone or something on a journey, and the noun for the protected group of ships or vehicles followed soon after. The same via root sits behind familiar words like 'voyage', 'deviate' and even 'obvious' (literally 'in the way'). Because the modern spelling keeps the French -oy ending rather than a plain -y, writers sometimes hesitate over it, but remembering the 'way' inside 'voy' helps fix it.

How the word is built

• con- (together, from Latin com-)
• voy (way, from Latin via 'road')