Copying

How to spell copying

7 letters · 3 syllables

How to pronounce copying

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does copying mean?

1. verbThe act of reproducing something in writing, print, or another form, or of imitating it.

Copying in a sentence

• The office spends a fortune copying contracts onto headed paper.

• Copying another student's answers counts as cheating in the exam.

Where does copying come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This word descends from the Latin noun copia, which literally meant 'abundance' or 'plenty', a sense still visible in the related words 'copious' and 'cornucopia'. In medieval Latin copia narrowed into a clerical meaning: the right to reproduce a text, and then the reproduction itself, because making a 'plenty' of a document meant producing further written versions of it. English borrowed 'copy' through Old French copie in the 1300s, originally for a transcript or duplicate of a manuscript. The verb 'to copy' followed naturally, and 'copying' is simply its present participle and gerund form, built with the ordinary -ing ending. The one spelling point worth remembering is that the final y of 'copy' stays put before -ing (unlike before -ed, where it becomes 'copied'), so the word keeps its y and never doubles the p.

How the word is built

• copy (from Latin copia: abundance, plenty)
• -ing (present participle/gerund suffix)