Cooperating

How to spell cooperating

11 letters · 5 syllables

How to pronounce cooperating

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does cooperating mean?

1. verbWorking jointly with others toward a shared goal, or complying willingly with a request.

Cooperating in a sentence

• The two firms are cooperating on a new product line.

• Witnesses are fully cooperating with the police investigation.

Where does cooperating come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This word comes from the Latin verb cooperari, meaning 'to work together', which was formed from the prefix co- (a worn-down form of cum, 'with' or 'together') joined to operari, 'to work', the same root that gives us 'operate' and 'operation'. Latin operari in turn rested on opus, meaning 'a work' or 'a task'. The verb passed into English in the early 1600s, at first often spelled with a hyphen or a two-dot diaeresis (co-operate, coöperate) to signal that the two o's were sounded separately. Modern usage has largely dropped both marks, leaving the doubled 'oo' that trips writers who expect a hyphen. Remembering that the first 'o' belongs to co- (together) and the second begins oper- (work) makes the spelling far easier to fix in the mind.

How the word is built

• co- (together)
• oper (from Latin operari: to work)
• -ate (verb suffix)
• -ing (present participle)