County

How to spell county

6 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce county

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does county mean?

1. nounA territorial division of a country or state used for local administration.

County in a sentence

• The new bypass runs along the edge of the county.

• Property taxes are collected by the county rather than the city.

Where does county come from?

Language of origin: French

County entered English in the early 1300s from Anglo-French counté and Old French conté, which named the territory ruled or held by a count. Behind that lies the Medieval Latin comitatus, meaning the jurisdiction or office of a comes, the Latin word for a 'companion' that came to mean a high noble or count attending a ruler. The literal idea, then, was the stretch of land belonging to a count, and that sense of an administrative district stuck even in England, where the local lord was usually an earl rather than a count. The same comes root survives in the word 'count' (the noble title) and in 'committee' and 'concomitant', all carrying the notion of accompanying. The spelling keeps the silent French shape with the 'ou', which is the small trap that catches writers tempted to write 'county' as 'counti' or to drop a letter.

How the word is built

• count- (from Old French conté: the land of a count)
• -y (noun suffix denoting a domain or district)